With the Group of Eight (G8) countries in disagreement over climate policy, the heads of more than 20 leading financial service companies have called on the G8 to support significant emissions reductions.
 | Joachim Faber: "Clear and mandatory targets should be part of a new climate change regime" (Photo: Allianz SE) |
The banks, insurance and re-insurance companies - all of them members of the United Nations Environment Programme`s Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) - issued a statement calling on G8 countries to formally adopt targets for emissions reductions no later than 2009. The statement was signed by 23 company CEOs, presidents, chairmen and directors.
The companies, which include Citigroup, Calvert and Allianz SE, fear that unchecked climate change will lead to an increase in climate-related disasters, with "grave social and environmental harm," including annual economic losses as high as one trillion dollars by 2040. The statement said that there "has been a seismic shift in how climate change is perceived, and it is widely considered to be the greatest market failure ever."
In the statement, Munich Re board member Torsten Jeworrek alluded to recent studies showing “that it is cheaper to invest in climate protection than to pay for the losses that result from inactivity.”
Allianz SE board member Joachim Faber said the financial sector “needed planning reliability for future investment decisions.” “Setting clear and mandatory, medium and long-term emission reduction targets and implementing appropriate incentive schemes should be part of a new climate change regime,” said Faber.
Failure might disrupt markets, societies, ecosystems, and cultures
The statement suggests that recent proposals by the United Kingdom and European Union – setting mandatory emission reductions of between 20 percent and 30 percent by 2020, and 60 percent to 80 percent by 2050 – should serve as a guide for all industrialized countries.
UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner welcomed the initiative by the financial sector. “The Arctic and icy regions are in the front-line, but there are front-lines opening up everywhere as a result of climbing greenhouse gases - not least for industry and business like the financial services sector who are facing escalating risks to themselves and their customers,” he said.
The executive statement, released on UN World Environment Day, said that failure to react now to the threat of climate change will “affect - and even possibly disrupt - the operation of markets, societies, ecosystems, and cultures.”
editor: Thilo Kunzemann, Valdis Wish
publishing date: June 6, 2007
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