After a brief introduction about how GWP has involved into the climate and water related programmes, Prof. Bamsey told the junior professionals that the recent publication of the IPCC’s Working Group 2 Report underlined these risks dramatically and in detail. Risks to the availability of water, one of the fundamental bases of civilisation, are among the most serious although these attract less attention of governments now than in past decades.
His lecture let the youth get the success of the global response to climate change should depend crucially on investment being channeled away from BAU to climate-friendly economic activity. Early steps in this direction focused on identifying physical and financial climate risk to businesses including in their supply chains. Subsequently regulations and tools proliferated to provide incentives for investors, public and private, to move their financing away from climate risky areas. The emergence of the carbon market, green bonds, divestment from fossil fuels and especially the greening of the international financial system reflected these governance reforms. The effect was to provide economic opportunity for governments and companies acting to reduce the risks.
More recently, the turmoil in global energy markets is likely in the longer term to increase the speed of the energy transition as countries see renewable energy as the surest (and cheapest) form of energy security.
