International Approaches to Global Climate Change

This article surveys the issues involved in slowing the climatechange induced by global emissions of greenhouse gases, especiallycarbon dioxide. It addresses the possible social and economicimpacts of global warming, the elements involved in evaluatingthe pros and cons of steps to reduce those impacts, and theissues involved in engaging most of the worlds states in a cooperativeendeavor to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It expresses doubtsabout the efficacy of a global approach based on national emissiontargets, such as those set by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and favorsinstead mutually agreed actions focused on a common emissiontax. It also discusses issues of compliance with an internationalagreement to reduce emissions, actions states can take in theabsence of international agreement, and contingency actionsthat might be considered if the problem proves to be more seriousthan now seems to be the case.      

Governance and Climate Change: A Success Story in Mobilizing Investor Support for Corporate Responses to Climate Change

Until fairly recently, the main approach to getting business to respond to climate change has been top‐down efforts to regulate emissions and enact various forms of “carbon pricing.” The aim of such efforts has been to make businesses “internalize” the costs associated with greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Governments are expected to set the environmental protection rules for companies in their respective countries, and markets are expected to adjust to the new regulations and carbon prices. But this classical approach to economic policy does not work when applied to a global “public goods” challenge like trying to limit the extent and effects of climate change. Instead of a top‐down approach, in which economic actors are forced to respond to regulations imposed on them, the Paris climate agreement of 2015 was reached using a bottom‐up approach centered on the concept of Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs)—along with a process that ended up encouraging the participation of all economic actors, not just governments. The authors provide an account of how the Paris agreement was reached, and why the “Portfolio Decarbonization Coalition” under the auspices of the United Nations is the most important of several private‐sector initiatives that are changing the way corporations operate. Thanks in large part to the PDC, investors can now undertake meaningful corporate governance action on climate change. With GHG emissions from a particular companies’ operations now much easier to measure, objective performance metrics on GHG emissions can now be set by boards and verified by shareholders. And current decarbonized indexes can be used as performance benchmarks for asset managers’ compensation, which can be tied to return outperformance relative to a “decarbonized” index.     

Preserving Value through Adaptation to Climate Change

Corporate “mitigation” efforts to limit greenhouse gases alone will not be sufficient to protect companies against future environmental impacts. For most companies intent on preserving their operating efficiency and value, “adaptation”—the process of changing behavior in response to actual or expected climate change impacts—is emerging as a critical partner to mitigation efforts aimed at reducing the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The recent growth in the expected costs associated with the risk of climate change emphasizes the importance of developing new technology and redesigning infrastructure and other assets that will enable companies to respond to such change without excessive reductions in profitability. The nature and extent of adaptation in each situation will depend on the costs involved relative to the benefits of adopting different adaptation strategies to achieve a target level of resilience. Companies that choose to adapt and do so effectively are expected to benefit from an improvement in their net risk‐return profile. Consistent with this expectation, the authors found that a sample of companies from the European energy sector that adapted to the 2005 EU climate change mandate by diversifying their fuel sources (mainly away from coal) experienced reductions in both risk and return while non‐adapting firms experienced roughly the same returns, but at the cost of higher risk. The benefit of adapting is thus seen as showing up not in higher returns per se, but in higher risk‐adjusted returns.     

Climate Change Scenario Analysis for Public Market Investors

Academic studies suggest that market participants are demanding higher risk premiums for carbon‐intensive assets, but that natural disasters have yet to be efficiently priced into the market. And as a consequence, asset owners and investors are less than fully informed about the evidence of climate change uncovered by the scientific community. The author assesses the exposure to climate risk of Rockefeller Capital's ‘Ocean Strategy,” an actively managed global equity portfolio, by using three publicaly available climate change scenario analysis tools: (1) Paris Agreement Capital Transition Assessment (PACTA); The Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI), and (3) Carbon Tracker's 2 Degrees of Separation.     

Firm-Level Evidence on International Stock Market Comovement *

We explore the link between international stock market comovement and the extent to which firms operate globally. Using stock returns and balance sheet data for companies in 20 countries, we estimate a factor model that decomposes stock returns into global, country-and industry-specific shocks. We find a large and statistically significant link for global shocks. A firm raising its international sales by 10 percent raises the exposure of its stock return to global shocks by two percent. This link has grown stronger over time since the mid-1980s. We find no similarly robust link between international sales and exposure to country-specific shocks. * We are grateful to Marcelle Chauvet, Kathryn Dominguez, Kristin Forbes, Geert Rouwenhorst, Dan Waggoner, participants in the Atlanta Fed Finance Brown Bag, the IMF conference on “Global Linkages”, and the Kiel Institute for World Economics workshop on multinationals for their suggestions. We are especially grateful to Franklin Allen, Marco Pagano, and two anonymous referees for extensive comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Finally, we wish to thank Menzie Chinn for sharing his capital account liberalization measure, Iskander Karibzhanov for translating some of our code into C and Young Kim for excellent research assistance.     

审慎管理气候变化相关金融风险

气候变化相关金融风险问题已引起国际社会越来越多的关注,被认为是系统性金融风险的重要来源之一.落实新发展理念,统筹发展与安全,推动低碳绿色发展,实现习近平总书记提出的2030年前我国碳排放达峰和2060年前碳中和目标(以下简称"30·60目标"),防范系统性金融风险,都需要深入研究气候变化相关金融风险,并通过宏观审慎管理...     

资金机制:气候变化谈判的博弈焦点

资金机制是后京都时代国际社会合作应对全球气候变化的关键制度,也是发达和发展中国家之间重要的权利、义务关系。围绕资金机制的运作实体、活动资格和优先事项、资金分配和资金数量,发达国家与发展中国家两大集团及其各自内部充满矛盾和利益冲突。在京都时代及其之后,资金机制始终是气候变化谈判的博弈焦点。     

Trade Between North Korea and China: Firm-Level Analysis

Using the unique survey data involving 138 Chinese firms, this study examines the determinants of the performance of the Chinese firms doing businesses with North Korea. The business ties between the Chinese firms and their North Korean counterparts affiliated with the army are positively correlated with the former’s performance. This finding suggests that North Korea’s “Military First” policy acts as a guiding principle of the resource allocation in the country’s export sector. We also found that South Korean sanctions against North Korea were ineffective in banning North Korean goods from gaining access to the South Korean market possibly because of the circumvention of Chinese firms.     

气候变化与低碳投资机遇及战略

全球气候变化会带来"低碳"投资主题和业务机遇,由于气候变化资产回报率高且与传统资产之间的相关性适中,在传统组合中加入气候变化资产将进一步优化资产组合,改善组合的回报与风险结构.可以运用诸如债券、股票、私募股权、房地产以及基础设施投资等资产类型来捕获气候变化投资机会.在气候变化条件下,投资管理业应采取积极的应对和发展战略,尤其是要改进对公司的估值评估方法,充分考虑气候变化对公司价值的潜在影响.     

Socially Responsible Investing and Climate Change: Contradictions and Challenges

This article explores the contradiction between the articulated investment policies, screening criteria or ethical charters of socially responsible investment funds and their actions demonstrated by their portfolio selection practice. The paper provides a background to socially responsible investment and Australia's contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. A discussion of renewable energy options lays the foundation for our main assertion: that this set of possible alternatives provides some new and more environmentally robust options that will better complement the underlying philosophy of funds in the socially responsible investment sector.     

气候变化背景下搁浅资产理论的演变

气候变化已成为威胁当今人类社会生存和发展的巨大挑战之一,在此背景下产生的搁浅资产也逐渐成为影响经济发展和金融安全稳定的重要因素.本文从搁浅资产的起源和成因出发,系统梳理搁浅资产概念的提出和发展,从公司风险、金融机构风险、系统性金融风险和全球经济风险四个层面详细阐释资产搁浅风险的形成机理和经济后果,继而对搁浅资产评估的行...