Top investors urge G20 nations to ratify Paris Agreement this year
A group of 130 institutional investors, pension funds and asset managers has called on G20 leaders to ratify the Paris Agreement this year. The call comes ahead of the G20 Summit in Hangzhou, China next month. The group brings together members from six of the world’s largest green investment groups: Europe’s Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change; Ceres and the North American Investor Network on Climate Risk; the Australia/New Zealand Investor Group on Climate Change; the Asia Investor Group on Climate Change; CDP; and UNPRI. It also includes some of the world’s largest investment firms and pension funds, including AXA, BNP Paribas and HSBC. The letter also calls for G20 leaders to double global investment in clean energy, tighten up climate disclosure mandates, develop carbon pricing, phase out fossil fuel subsidies and take steps to strengthen the national climate action plans they submitted under the Paris Agreement by 2018. (Business Green)
Real estate green bonds tipped for rapid growth
Conditions are ripe for the real estate green bond market to emerge as a key growth sector, according to new research from ratings agency S&P. Commercial tenants are demanding greener buildings to help them curb costs and meet climate targets, while investor demand for green bonds continues to gather pace, the report notes. The research suggests that if greater standardisation is introduced to sector-specific bonds, they could become an increasingly popular form of financing for real estate firms. The majority of S&P’s real estate clients now report that the majority of their office portfolio is “green” certified, and all plan to attain certification for the remainder of their assets over the next two to three years. (Business Green)
Corporate Reputation
Study: Researchers who tested medicines in 69,000 children failed to publish results
A new study published in the journal Pediatrics finds that clinical trials involving over 69,000 children have never had their results published in a peer reviewed journal. Pharma companies in the US get a special bonus, in the form of extended exclusive marketing rights, for testing their drugs in children. A subsequent law demands that findings be posted on ClinicalTrials.gov, a federally run database. But the study examined all 599 pediatric trials registered in the database from 2008-2010 and found that 30% of completed trials remained unpublished. Studies that received industry funding were more than twice as likely as those with non-industry grants to be unpublished two years after the end of the project, and more than three times as likely after three years. (AllTrials; STAT)
Environment
UK MPs call for ban on plastic microbeads
The UK’s Environmental Audit Committee has called for a worldwide ban on plastic microbeads in cosmetics. The government says it will consider a ban on microbeads in cosmetics if the EU doesn’t legislate against them. But the MPs want ministers to take a firmer position on the growing problem. “Cosmetic companies’ voluntary approach to phasing out plastic microbeads simply won’t wash. We need a full legal ban,” said the committee chair, Mary Creagh. The committee says that although microbeads are a small part of a huge problem, a ban would show commitment to tackling the wider issue of plastic pollution. (BBC)
Study: Air pollution threat hidden as research ‘presumes people are at home’
The true impact of air pollution has been obscured by the failure to consider people’s exposure as they move around during the day, according to a new study conducted by the American Chemical Society. It has mapped the hotspots of New York’s air pollution based on where people gather for work or recreation. “We found that lots of people are being exposed in central Brooklyn and Queens and lower Manhattan, where people work and recreate. But that’s not the way cities are typically regulated for air pollution – they just look at highly polluted areas rather than the amount of time people spend in them,” said lead author Dr Marguerite Nyhan. (Guardian)
COMMENTS