Skip navigation
The Cost of Inaction
Report

The Cost of Inaction

Recognising the Value at Risk from Climate Change

EIU, 2015

auto-generated audio
auto-generated audio

Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative

Recommendation

Discussions about climate change typically focus on environmental impacts – storms, droughts, floods, and the like. Yet investment managers and investors around the world will feel the effects of climate change on their portfolios, in the form of weaker asset growth and lower returns. These losses could be severe, particularly if business and government fail to address the issue soon. This sobering report from the Economist Intelligence Unit puts some numbers on the financial and economic costs society will have to bear in the years to 2100. getAbstract recommends this cogent analysis to fund managers, investors and anyone who expects to draw a pension in the next 30 years or so.

Take-Aways

  • The indirect costs of climate change, in the form of impaired macroeconomic activity and sluggish growth, will ripple through all of society.
  • The present value of expected average losses through 2100 due to climate change amounts to $4.2 trillion, roughly equivalent to the GDP of Japan.
  • Fund managers charged with the fiduciary responsibility of meeting pension and other long-term obligations risk performance shortfalls unless they address environmental impacts on their investments.

About the Author

The Economist Intelligence Unit is an independent research and analysis organization.


Comment on this summary or Start Discussion

More on this topic

By the same author

8
Article
7
Report
7
Report
8
Report
7
Report
8
Report
8
Report
7
Report
8
Report
7
Report
8
Report
7
Report
7
Report
7
Report
8
Report
8
Report