Knowledge and Insight - Climate change

We have been engaging with Royal Dutch Shell on a number of issues for over 20 years: from its operations in the Niger Delta, Ireland and Russia to its involvement in Canadian tar sands projects.

In the aftermath of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change, the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate published a 2016 report indicating that the transition to sustainable energy would require around $90 trillion of global infrastructural investment over 15 years.

Rathbone Greenbank reaffirms its commitment to the Montréal Carbon Pledge by publishing an updated carbon footprint of the equity holdings within all the investment portfolios it manages. We believe it is important to understand and be transparent about the climate impacts associated with investment portfolios, so that risks and opportunities can be identified and managed appropriately.

Global warming means spring is arriving sooner. As winter draws in that may sound attractive, but it means plants are flowering earlier than usual. If they become out of sync with nature’s pollinators, the consequences for the global economy could be serious.

“The clear and present danger of climate change means we cannot burn our way to prosperity. We already rely too heavily on fossil fuels. We need to find a new, sustainable path to the future we want. We need a clean industrial revolution.”

It came as no great surprise when President Trump finally announced his expected decision to withdraw the US from the historic Paris Agreement on 1 June 2017.

Having promised to take this step as one of the pillars of his presidential campaign on the basis that the Agreement unfairly penalised American competitiveness and jobs, Trump was always going to be bound to this commitment or risk appearing politically weak – even if it’s possible that withdrawal might not be completed before the next presidential election in November 2019.

In 2015, we published our first carbon footprint of the equity holdings across all investment portfolios managed by Rathbone Greenbank. This used a tool developed by our ethical research team to allow individual client portfolios to be footprinted. Here, we present the results of an updated carbon footprint analysis as part of our renewed commitment to the Montréal Carbon Pledge.

On 6 October 2016, Rathbone Greenbank was invited to participate in a multidenominational event at Southwark’s Anglican Cathedral on the subject of “Investing sustainably: Protecting financial assets and supporting the transition to a zero-carbon future”.

Rathbone Greenbank has joined 130 investors, pension funds and asset managers from around the world in writing to the leaders of the G20 nations to call for government leadership on the issue of climate change. This call comes ahead of September’s G20 summit in Hangzhou, China, where leaders from 20 major global economies will meet.