Paul Simpson, writing for the Guardian Professional Network, points that despite the COP17 agreement in Durban, government action to address climate change has not kept up with the pace and scale required to avoid dangerous climate change. It has therefore significantly increased the risk for society, businesses and the economy at large.
He asserts that the slow progress towards action of long-term investors presents additional risks to their portfolio in the medium to long term from increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events. As a result, they must act in 2012 to reduce long-term strategic risk to their portfolio from climate change, rather than wait for a plan to reduce emissions in 2020.
He also calls for investors to be involved in the design of the Green Climate Fund (GCF), which aims to provide $100bn of government funds to address the problem by 2020, but to leverage significantly larger sums of private capital to achieve its goals.