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Two digit dates had the potential to cause a lot of havoc when the clocks rolled over from 1999 to 2000
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Stuart Kirk, HSBC Asset Management’s head of responsible investment, has been catching a lot of flak for comments he made yesterday expressing his view that the risk to financial markets from climate change is overstated. “Who cares if Miami is six meters underwater in 100 years?” he reportedly said. “Amsterdam has been six meters underwater for ages and that is a really nice place. We will cope with it.” Of course, one difference between Miami and Amsterdam is lead time–the dike system in the Netherlands that prevents flooding has its origins in the Iron Age and although the construction we see today really started moving in the 12th century, that’s still 900 years worth of engineering we’re talking about.
Kirk’s presentation, which you can watch for yourself here, was entitled “Why investors need not worry about climate risk.” And while Kirk acknowledged the risk of climate change he said he found the focus on climate “disproportionate” compared to more pressing concerns like inflation, noting that “at a big bank like ours, what do people think the average loan length is? It is six years. What happens to the planet in year seven is actually irrelevant to…
