Cheføkonomen i UniCredit, Erik F. Nielsen, skriver i sit søndagsbrev, at G20-topmødet i Rom og det igangværende COP26-topmøde demonstrerer, at stats- og regeringscheferne ikke kan levere varen, nemlig de nødvendige investeringer i klima-forandringen. Der er behov for ekstra offentlige investeringer på 1 procent af BNP og massive finansielle tilskyndelser til erhvervslivet for at nå det opstillede mål. Men regeringerne viser ikke evne eller vilje til at gøre den nødvendige indsats. Spørgsmålet er, om det bliver erhvervslivet, der kommer til at gøre den største indsats. Han påpeger, at erhvervslivet er begyndt at tilpasse sig den grønne omstilling, og det ses f.eks. i, at investorerne tror på Teslas satsning med el-biler og har banket kursværdien op på 1000 milliarder dollar. Står vi over for en transformation af kapitalismen? Erik F. Nielsen tror dog ikke, at der kommer de nødvendige forandringer, før verden har oplevet flere miljøkatastrofer.
Sunday Wrap
The G20 leaders met in Rome (or by video) before some of them went to Glasgow to kick off two weeks of COP26 meetings to get some concrete meat on the bones of the Paris Accord to get to zero net emission and hence limit climate change.
I hope I’m wrong, but the chances of success do not look good. The scale of the challenge in terms of policies, including
additional public investments of almost 1% of GDP and massive financial incentives to the private sector to go green, surely including carbon taxation, is well beyond what any of the key global policymakers seems ready to pledge – or politically capable of delivering.
In a piece in Project-Syndicate on Friday (“The Path to Climate Credibility”), Jean Pisani-Ferry points out
that while the private sector is starting to adjust (he sees Tesla’s USD 1 trillion capitalization as a sign of “a transformation of capitalism”), governments “are not on track to deliver on their promise” from Paris in 2015, adding that “it would be madness for governments to count on business doing the job that belongs to them”.
Pisani-Ferry’s very read-worthy piece is here: The Pathto Climate Credibility
At a minimum, getting on the right track requires enormous willingness to cooperate globally, and yet, inward-looking
nationalism has gained power in many countries in recent years, illustrated by the absence in Rome and Glasgow of the Chinese and Russian leaders, among others, and the latest near-catastrophic developments between the UK and the EU over Northern Ireland and fisheries.
As a result, the odds seem to me to favor a near-term future of further (and increasingly severe?) environmental disasters, with all the disruptions (and tragedies) coming with those, with tensions accelerating as some countries (the EU?) move ahead faster than others and, as a result, need to protect the vulnerable parts of their economies during the transition (carbon border taxation?)
