Thirteen years ago, on this day, January 14, 2010 various investors met for the fourth meeting sponsored by the usual suspects, at the United Nations HQ in New York.
The Summit brought together more than 520 financial, corporate, and investor leaders with more than $22 trillion in combined assets. Speakers from the investment community, business, labor, and government highlighted the fact that private investment in climate change solutions is crucial for addressing the climate crisis and will not happen at the necessary scale without strong climate and energy policies that limit emissions and put a price on carbon.”
https://www.keywiki.org/2010_Investor_Summit_on_Climate_Risk
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 388.9ppm. As of 2023 it is 419. .
The context was – a “Bali Roadmap” had been agreed for negotiations to culminate in a post-Kyoto Protocol deal at the December 2009 climate conference in Copenhagen. This meeting of investors will have been put in everyone’s diary months earlier, in anticipation of sunny uplands and money-making opportunities. In the event, Copenhagen ended in farce, and so the mood was probably quite downbeat. So it goes.
What I think we can learn from this
The investors won’t save us. They will talk among themselves and cling on to the trappings of power, influence, intelligence, but none of it amounts to a bucket of warm spit. They have to delude themselves, but we don’t have to fall for the same delusions…
What happened next
They kept holding conferences. New buzzwords are invented, tossed around, age out, and are replaced by new buzzwords… Meanwhile, the carbon dioxide accumulates.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Do comment on this post.