On the complex and consuming issue of global warming, climate scientists have pointed to human contributions and have warned with increasing urgency about catastrophic events and massive human dislocation.1 Investors are paying close attention.2 More recently, regulatory and legal scrutiny has focused on significant questions for the capital markets.3 Who is responsible for causing these problems? Exactly how much have market participants contributed to the planet's greenhouse gas (GHG) load, and when? If global limitations on GHG emissions are inevitable, who is well-positioned to absorb the cost and who will be driven out of business?4 What will the scorecard look like, sector by sector and company by company, so that the market can determine who are the good and bad actors, what the laggards plan to do to change their ways (and what that will cost them—and maybe their customers), and what each answer will say about these companies, both as corporate citizens and economic survivors?
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Smith et al. (2008) studied this question.