Knowledge and Insight - Climate change

Rathbone Greenbank Review features articles relating to our research output, corporate engagement activities and full summaries of our annual Investor Day events.

Climate change represents one of the greatest social, environmental and economic challenges that the world has ever faced. However, despite the very real dangers it presents, the international response to date has been slow and largely ineffective.

Climate change and the threats it poses to society are priority issues for responsible investors in the energy sector. Since 2011, Rathbone Greenbank Investments has been part of a coalition of investors engaging with the top ten carbon emitters in the FTSE 100.

There is now almost unanimous scientific consensus that human activity has been the dominant cause of climate change since the 1950s. A growing body of evidence links activities such as deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels to the impacts of climate change including global warming, rising sea levels, increased incidence of extreme weather events, loss of biodiversity and reduced crop yields. In turn, these effects are expected to bring about societal pressures as populations migrate, wealth distribution is affected and the likelihood of conflict is increased.