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London Accord – Sharing Research To Save The Planet

After two years of hard work led by Jan-Peter Onstwedder and me, we finally launch the London Accord at Mansion House on the evening of 19 December.

Grainy but true – l to r: Rt Honourable Lord Mayor David Lewis, Rt Honourable John Sutton MP, Sir Michael Snyder, Professor Michael Mainelli

My Lord Mayor, Your Excellencies, My Lords, Secretary of State, Alderman, Sheriffs, [Councillors, Distinguished Guests,] Ladies and Gentlemen… – it is my great pleasure to have this opportunity to tell you tonight about the London Accord.

The London Accord’s theme is “cash in, carbon out”. The London Accord provides informed views about climate change investment and sets out a methodology for evaluating those investments. The London Accord began in 2005 at almost the same time as the Stern Review. Sir Nicholas said last year that “climate change is the greatest market failure the world has seen”. While I admire many aspects of the Stern Report, I beg to differ with this specific point.

Markets haven’t failed. Markets have done what markets do, set prices and transfer resources and risks. In the case of climate change, what we have is an absence of a market. Markets and investors have acted accordingly. Events in Bali last week change all that. Henceforth, society will turn greenhouse gas emissions into a property that can be capped, traded, and reduced – and we must factor these emission costs into all investment decisions.

Why does the London Accord matter? Well, for a start, the publication of the London Accord matters to us because we have been working on it for over two years, but the London Accord should matter to everyone. The comedian Jay Leno once quipped, “According to a new UN report, the global warming outlook is much worse than originally predicted. Which is pretty bad when they originally predicted it would destroy the planet.” The London Accord matters because the financial services community says, if society is prepared to pay, commerce can stop global warming.

Our future scenarios for greenhouse gas emission prices are double today’s €20 per tonne of CO2, more like €40 per tonne of CO2. In rough terms, we need to reduce the CO2 emissions per Briton from 10 tonnes to one or two tonnes. At around €40/tonne that’s about €300 per person or about €1,200 per family per year. It’s going to be quite a different world.

Private sector investment is crucial to climate change investment (86% of capital investment in energy supply must be from the private sector – UNFCCC). Much of that investment will be funded through large pension funds and asset managers who rely on analysis by the financial services sector for investment decisions. So what did the London Accord team conclude?
• Energy investment is going to become much, much riskier;
• Investors should invest now. At prices per tonne of CO2 over €30, investment portfolios can constructed that produce both attractive financial and ‘carbon returns’.
• Forestry is a big unknown – there is a need to narrow the range of credible estimates for abatement and costs of forestry projects, as well as solidify carbon offset markets for forestry.
• Efficiency gains continue to show great potential for financial and carbon returns but may need behavioural incentives such as regulation.
• Carbon capture and sequestration/storage (CCS) seems an unrealistic investment today.

Moreover, financial services leaders understand the need to collaborate or collapse. The London Accord is a great ‘open source’ research project – the largest-ever private-sector investment collaboration into climate change, representing work valued at £7million ($15million). Buy-side firms such as Universities Superannuation Scheme, Insight, and Legal & General helped sell-side firms and analysts shape the project to ensure its outcomes would be useful to investors. Observers from the EU, the International Energy Agency, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and others have been involved.

In the time available, I must turn to thanks, and there are far too many. The London Accord has truly been a cooperative effort. Jan-Peter Onstwedder and I recorded nearly 500 thanks in the CD-ROM you will receive tonight, and still we missed people. However, on such a special evening there are a few I must single out. First, I would thank my team at Z/Yen, including Ian Harris, Linda Cook, Mark Yeandle, Kevin Parker, Liz Bailey and Alexander Knapp, who put up with two years of stress. BP staff worked throughout on the London Accord, and here I would single out Tessa Marwick, Andrew Vivian, James Palmer and Sanet Phillips. Gresham College’s Lord Sutherland and Barbara Anderson helped to kick things off and generously provided facilities, including a technical seminar at Gresham College we’re having on 30 January 2008 to which all of you are welcome. Henry Thoresby and Sir Howard Davies gave us excellent support from the LSE community pulling the threads together.

The best way to thank the contributors, the important people who did all the work, is to enumerate their reports:

First we had two papers setting the context:
• Alexander Evans, Center on International Cooperation at New York University & David Steven, River Path Associates, wrote “Climate Change: the State of the Debate”, examining how climate change rose above other global issues;
• Nick Butler, Cambridge Centre for Energy Studies set out “The Forces of Change in the Energy Market”.

Then, the heavyweights analysed the investment opportunities:
• Solar Energy – Eckhard Plinke and Matthias Fawer, Bank Sarasin
• Investing in Biofuels – Conor O’Prey, ABN AMRO
• Investing in Renewable Energy – Mark Thompson, Canaccord Adams
• The Global Case for Efficiency Gains – Miroslav Durana, Tanya Monga and Hervé Prettre, Credit Suisse
• Energy Efficiency – Asari Efiong, Merrill Lynch
• Carbon Capture and Sequestration – Marc Levinson, JPMorgan Chase
• Emissions Trading – Andrew Humphrey and Luciano Diana, Morgan Stanley
• Forest Assets – Stephane Voisin and Mikael Jafs, Cheuvreux

A number of us examined the wider impacts:
• Credit Risk – Christopher Bray and Dr Richenda Connell, Barclays and Acclimatise
• Carbon Intensity – Valéry Lucas-Leclin, Société Générale
• Sustainable Investment Solutions – Alice Chapple, Vedant Walia and Will Dawson, Forum for the Future
• The Legal Issues – Lewis McDonald, Herbert Smith
• Climate Change Investment and Policy Portfolios – James Palmer

Finally, some of us considered the policy implications
• Technological Development – J Doyne Farmer & Dr Jessika Trancik, The Santa Fe Institute
• Emission Standards – Steven Davis, The Climate Conservancy
• Product-Level Standards – Hendrik Garz: WestLB
• Philanthropy – Davida Herzl, NextEarth Foundation
• Carbon Markets and Forests – Eric Bettelheim, Gregory Janetos and Jennifer Henman, Sustainable Forestry Management
• Cap-and-Trade Versus Carbon Tax – Alexander Knapp, Z/Yen, Jan-Peter Onstwedder

The full publication, The London Accord: Making Investment Work For The Climate, contains 25 reports in 780 pages.

Very early on we formed a governance team consisting of the early supporters, each of whom gave freely of their time and whom I would like to thank personally:
• Alice Chapple from Forum for the Future
• Simon Mills from the City of London Corporation
• Chris Mottershead from BP plc
• Alexander Evans from New York University’s Center on International Cooperation

Before closing, I would like to move on to three special thanks. The first is a personal and corporate thank you to the City of London Corporation. Without the Corporation’s resources this project would be a pale shadow of what it is tonight. The personal part is to thank Michael Snyder, Chairman of the Policy & Resources Committee, for putting his drive, intellect and charisma behind the London Accord so early on. People remark that it seems harder and harder for government and commerce to work together. That may be true, but when you see the City of London accomplishing so much globally, it’s hard to remember it’s just our local council.

Second, my heartfelt thanks must go to Jan-Peter Onstwedder and all the support we had from BP and, in particular, Vivienne Cox. Jan-Peter was the Project Director from last year, well before formally joining the project. Jan-Peter has diplomatic and organisational skills of which I can only dream. Jan-Peter should be giving this talk, but is, as ever, too modest. Jan-Peter applied his intellectual, social and organisational skills with the determination to show that financial services can make difference to climate change. It was a privilege to work with Jan-Peter this year.

Finally, I would like to especially thank you, my Lord Mayor. Two years ago you had the foresight and courage to lend this crazy idea your valuable support. Two years later you have the generosity and kindness to lend us your home for this magnificent event. You have been stalwart throughout and I hope that the London Accord publication is a fitting tribute to your concern, your passion and your vision of London’s financial services industry at the front of the fight against climate change. In your year in office, which has started so brilliantly, I wish you the highest success in all of your endeavours in office, from the ceremonial to the commercial to the charitable.

The London Accord demonstrates that the financial services sector understands well the future implications of climate change. A man once reproached William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk in Star Trek: “On your show, you had Russians, Chinese, Africans, and many others – why did you never have a character of my nationality?” Shatner supposedly replied, “You must understand that Star Trek is set in the future.” The London Accord is about our future and we would like to make sure that all nationalities are there, tropical, temperate or arctic; mountain top or sea-side.

Financial services is stereotyped as a selfish, self-centred industry. Over the past two years the collaboration and sharing of the London Accord has proved that stereotype wrong. The London Accord makes me proud to work in financial services. You should all be proud too.

Thank you.

Posted on Life As We Live It, Long Finance, The City of London & Broad Street Ward

The City Debate: Are Economic Advancement & A Clean Environment Incompatible?

The City Debate 2007 at Mansion House, 29 January 2007

[left to right]

Chris Huhne MP (Liberal Democrats’ Shadow Environment Food and Rural Affairs Secretary), Emma Duncan (Deputy Editor, The Economist), Rt Hon Michael Portillo, Richard D North (Fellow, Insitute of Economic Affairs), Professor Michael Mainelli (Executive Chairman, Z/Yen Group)

The somewhat awkward motion was “Green and Growth Don’t Go” (together implied) though the invitation was “Are Economic Advancement and a Clean Environment Incompatible?”. The audience was over 300 people from finance.

Professor Michael Mainelli’s opening statement to engage the audience was:

Chairman – My Lord Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Anyone with a waistcoat like mine knows that Green and growth don’t go together. Tonight I am that kid who told you that Santa Claus didn’t exist. Green and growth is a lie-for-children alongside Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Nessie, immaculate conception, intelligent design and honours-on-merit.

Let’s face one inconvenient truth – this spinning rock we live on is currently over-run by a bunch of trumped-up naked apes who have three primate imperatives:

  1. find bright, shiny fruit;
  2. avoid snakes;
  3. if you see someone attractive, let them know in a totally satisfying way that you find them attractive.

Three simple imperatives have led to 6.5 billion of the pests monkeying with the world’s thermostat. Way up in the white ivory trees, some brainy apes don’t fulfil imperative three very often. These apes sublimate their urges by dreaming up theories. Their current brainy theory: the moist fringe of this spinning rock is getting all steamy.

Do we know that CO2 levels are rising? Yes. Is there is a credible theory of global warming? Yes. Does this imply big changes over the next century? Yes. So what’s to debate? Well, other brainy apes down on the jungle floor sublimate their urges playing trading games and inventing theories about alpha returns. Jungle-floor apes have a theory: global warming can be stopped if everyone changes their economics a little bit. However, preventing global warming requires massive changes in economics and human nature within this decade, and human nature won’t change in time.

At Mansion House we can debate with real numbers. This is the City, not Westminster.

In 2004, gross worldwide emissions were about 7bn tons of carbon. Emissions are projected to grow to 14bn tons by 2054. For long-term stability, emissions in 2054 must be at or below today’s 7bn tons, and decreasing. Green and growth fans need a 7bn ton cut from “business as usual” by 2054. Socolow at Princeton identified 15 reasonable opportunities, called “wedges”, that would each cut 1bn tons by 2054. One wedge – convert 250 million hectares to biofuels, 1/6th of the world’s cropland. Another wedge – 2 million wind turbines on 30 million hectares, a Germany of wind turbines. Remember we need at least seven of these megaprojects in the next 47 years. They’re very realistic plans. Each wedge costs more than the GDP of China.

Global GDP was $44 trillion in 2005. Stern expects people to pay $440 billion each year to prevent climate change, $125 billion in the USA, $20 billion per annum in the UK. Starting this year. And the CO2 will still exceed 500 ppm. This is incredible, by which I mean it’s not believable. I don’t want a repeat of my Westminster experience on Nuclear Electric decommissioning. “Yes Minister, that number is possible, but certainly not probable!”

The UK has 1% of world population, but emits 2.2% of greenhouse gases. The FTSE 100 alone produce 1.6% of global greenhouse gases. The average person in the UK produced as much CO2 by 6 January as the average person in the world’s poorest countries will all year. You really think this will change?

We are natural optimists in the City. We want to believe that we can do good; we can be green; the bad are punished and the good are rewarded; every story has a happy ending. We fixed the ozone layer; we handled sulphur dioxide well. But these weren’t 50-year, $22 trillion problems. You’ll point to emerging carbon markets we’d all love, but right now carbon credits are little different than the Catholic Church selling indulgences. And that leads us to human nature – sex, greed, fear and apathy.

We breed. By 2054, there will be 9.5 billion of us. Even if Britain stopped all GHG emissions, within two years China’s growth makes that effort worthless. What’s the point if Brazil, India, Russia and China just keep going?

Sure people care but CO2 is tasteless and odourless, while I must have missed seeing us stop a million children a year dying of preventable HIV and measles, 1 million of malaria, 1.5 million of diarrhoea? We are going to solve global warming, yet let 2.7 billion people live on less than $2 a day? Even Stern had to cook the discount rate to make global warming a better investment than the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.

If you believe that green and growth go together:

  • you believe that population will painlessly stop growing;
  • every Briton will pay at least $333 each year forever to prevent global warming, or perhaps $850 or more;
  • two centuries of high latitude infrastructure will be replaced, we will transform the UK’s £4 trillion housing stock – you’ve mothballed listed buildings such as this magnificent house;
  • you’ve stopped funding all oil exploration projects – what’s the point? If we burn what we already have we exceed 1,000ppm;
  • you’ve shorted most of the FTSE;
  • you’ve given up skiing and holiday in Croydon.

Our distinguished journalist will be erudite and persuasive, coming from a magazine with a readership determined to make money out of any investment fashion, a magazine that thinks invading Iraq was a good idea

After her you’ll hear from a gifted Westminster speaker who loves another excuse for them to raise taxes from us. Our speaker’s party peddles a real whopper for children – more tax is good for you and good for the country.

Human nature means that green and growth don’t go together, whatever lies for children politicians and journalists want to sell. Let’s be The City and tell it like it is. You must vote for the motion.

Thank you.

Result:

Debate This House believes that Green and Growth Don’t Go

Pre Vote

  • Yes 32
  • No 65
  • Undecided 3

Final Vote

  • Yes 41
  • No 58
  • Undecided 1

Yes, Michael and Richard won.

Additional Motions:

This House believes that the answer to climate change is technology and not restraining consumer demand

  • Yes 54
  • No 40
  • Undecided 6

This House believes that going nuclear is the answer to going green

  • Yes 57
  • No 35
  • Undecided 8

This House believes that US policy is the biggest single problem to combating climate change

  • Yes 63
  • No 36
  • Undecided 1