Windfall

Windfall PDF Author: Mckenzie Funk
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143126598
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
A fascinating investigation into how people around the globe are cashing in on a warming world McKenzie Funk has spent the last six years reporting around the world on how we are preparing for a warmer planet. Funk shows us that the best way to understand the catastrophe of global warming is to see it through the eyes of those who see it most clearly—as a market opportunity. Global warming’s physical impacts can be separated into three broad categories: melt, drought, and deluge. Funk travels to two dozen countries to profile entrepreneurial people who see in each of these forces a potential windfall. The melt is a boon for newly arable, mineral-rich regions of the Arctic, such as Greenland—and for the surprising kings of the manmade snow trade, the Israelis. The process of desalination, vital to Israel’s survival, can produce a snowlike by-product that alpine countries use to prolong their ski season. Drought creates opportunities for private firefighters working for insurance companies in California as well as for fund managers backing south Sudanese warlords who control local farmland. As droughts raise food prices globally, there is no more precious asset. The deluge—the rising seas, surging rivers, and superstorms that will threaten island nations and coastal cities—has been our most distant concern, but after Hurricane Sandy and failure after failure to cut global carbon emissions, it is not so distant. For Dutch architects designing floating cities and American scientists patenting hurricane defenses, the race is on. For low-lying countries like Bangladesh, the coming deluge presents an existential threat. Funk visits the front lines of the melt, the drought, and the deluge to make a human accounting of the booming business of global warming. By letting climate change continue unchecked, we are choosing to adapt to a warming world. Containing the resulting surge will be big business; some will benefit, but much of the planet will suffer. McKenzie Funk has investigated both sides, and what he has found will shock us all. To understand how the world is preparing to warm, Windfall follows the money.

Windfall

Windfall PDF Author: Mckenzie Funk
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143126598
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Get Book Here

Book Description
A fascinating investigation into how people around the globe are cashing in on a warming world McKenzie Funk has spent the last six years reporting around the world on how we are preparing for a warmer planet. Funk shows us that the best way to understand the catastrophe of global warming is to see it through the eyes of those who see it most clearly—as a market opportunity. Global warming’s physical impacts can be separated into three broad categories: melt, drought, and deluge. Funk travels to two dozen countries to profile entrepreneurial people who see in each of these forces a potential windfall. The melt is a boon for newly arable, mineral-rich regions of the Arctic, such as Greenland—and for the surprising kings of the manmade snow trade, the Israelis. The process of desalination, vital to Israel’s survival, can produce a snowlike by-product that alpine countries use to prolong their ski season. Drought creates opportunities for private firefighters working for insurance companies in California as well as for fund managers backing south Sudanese warlords who control local farmland. As droughts raise food prices globally, there is no more precious asset. The deluge—the rising seas, surging rivers, and superstorms that will threaten island nations and coastal cities—has been our most distant concern, but after Hurricane Sandy and failure after failure to cut global carbon emissions, it is not so distant. For Dutch architects designing floating cities and American scientists patenting hurricane defenses, the race is on. For low-lying countries like Bangladesh, the coming deluge presents an existential threat. Funk visits the front lines of the melt, the drought, and the deluge to make a human accounting of the booming business of global warming. By letting climate change continue unchecked, we are choosing to adapt to a warming world. Containing the resulting surge will be big business; some will benefit, but much of the planet will suffer. McKenzie Funk has investigated both sides, and what he has found will shock us all. To understand how the world is preparing to warm, Windfall follows the money.

Business Adaptation to Climate Change

Business Adaptation to Climate Change PDF Author: Jorge E. Rivera
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108835724
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
A seminal global analysis of the adaptation strategies of businesses and corporations in response to climate change.

International Business and Global Climate Change

International Business and Global Climate Change PDF Author: Jonatan Pinkse
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134119593
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Climate change has become an important topic on the business agenda with strong pressure being placed on companies to respond and contribute to finding solutions to this urgent problem. This text provides a comprehensive analysis of international business responses to global climate change and climate change policy. Embedded in relevant management literature, this book gives a concise treatment of developments in policy and business activity on global, regional and national levels, using examples and systematic data from a large number of international companies. The first part outlines the international climate policy landscape and voluntary initiatives taken by companies, both alone and together with others. The second part examines companies’ strategies, covering innovation for climate change, as well as compensation via emissions trading and carbon offsetting. Written by well-known experts in the field, International Business and Global Climate Change illustrates how an environmental topic becomes strategically important in a mainstream sense, affecting corporate decision-making, business processes, products, reputation, advertising, communication, accounting and finance. This is a must-read for academics as well as practitioners concerned with this issue.

The Business of Climate Change

The Business of Climate Change PDF Author: Kathryn Begg
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351281666
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
In recent years climate change has become a leading issue on both the business and political agenda. With the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change now ratified, business is bracing itself for the reality of serious regulation on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.The Business of Climate Change presents a state-of-the-art analysis of corporate responses to the climate change issue. The book describes and assesses a number of recent business approaches that will help to identify effective strategies and promote the dissemination of proactive corporate practices on climate change worldwide. By identifying the factors that cause companies to pursue low-carbon strategies and support the Kyoto process, the book will also be helpful to governments in formulating policy.Business and industry have a crucial role to play in the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol. They are major emitters of greenhouse gases, and pressure is mounting for them to engage in a range of mitigation strategies, from emission inventorying and trading schemes to investments in low-carbon technologies. Behind the scenes a number of companies have started to develop strategies to curtail greenhouse gas emissions.These strategies can be very diverse in nature. At a political level, companies try to influence policy implementation and, more specifically, to test ideas in anticipation of possible regulation on the climate change issue. At a more practical level, there are a burgeoning number of initiatives to conserve energy use in production, transportation and buildings, to develop renewable sources of energy, to measure carbon emissions and sequestration at a detailed level, and to develop various markets for trading carbon credits among companies and countries. Some technologies, such as hybrid cars and compact fluorescent lighting, are now market realities.Common to all of these initiatives is that they operate in an environment of high complexity and uncertainty. The political implementation of the Kyoto Protocol remains uncertain and many details remain unspecified. Economic instruments such as emission trading are favoured, but their mechanisms are still hotly debated and the future price of credits is unknown. New markets for low-emission products and technologies are beginning to appear, but there are currently few regulatory drivers to assist their development. The impact of potential regulation on business will vary tremendously between companies and sectors. The fossil fuel and energy sectors fear the economics of action, while sectors such as insurance and agriculture fear the economics of inaction. Combined with the remaining uncertainties about what form climate change may take, corporate responses to reduce risks have to differentiate between sectors and have to be flexible. For individual companies, these big uncertainties demand new thinking and contingency planning.The Business of Climate Change is split into four sections: "Introduction and overview" presents a broad perspective on business and climate policies

Investing in the Era of Climate Change

Investing in the Era of Climate Change PDF Author: Bruce Usher
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023155382X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
A climate catastrophe can be avoided, but only with a rapid and sustained investment in companies and projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To the surprise of many, this has already begun. Investors are abandoning fossil-fuel companies and other polluting industries and financing businesses offering climate solutions. Rising risks, evolving social norms, government policies, and technological innovation are all accelerating this movement of capital. Bruce Usher offers an indispensable guide to the risks and opportunities for investors as the world faces climate change. He explores the role that investment plays in reducing emissions to net zero by 2050, detailing how to finance the winners and avoid the losers in a transforming global economy. Usher argues that careful examination of climate solutions will offer investors a new and necessary lens on the future for their own financial benefit and for the greater good. Companies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions will create great wealth, and, more importantly, they will provide a lifeline for humanity. Grounded in academic and industry research, Usher’s insights bring clarity to a complex and controversial topic while illuminating the people behind the numbers. This book sets out a practical and actionable plan for investors that will alter the course of climate change.

Economic Risks of Climate Change

Economic Risks of Climate Change PDF Author: Trevor Houser
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 023153955X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
Climate change threatens the economy of the United States in myriad ways, including increased flooding and storm damage, altered crop yields, lost labor productivity, higher crime, reshaped public-health patterns, and strained energy systems, among many other effects. Combining the latest climate models, state-of-the-art econometric research on human responses to climate, and cutting-edge private-sector risk-assessment tools, Economic Risks of Climate Change: An American Prospectus crafts a game-changing profile of the economic risks of climate change in the United States. This prospectus is based on a critically acclaimed independent assessment of the economic risks posed by climate change commissioned by the Risky Business Project. With new contributions from Karen Fisher-Vanden, Michael Greenstone, Geoffrey Heal, Michael Oppenheimer, and Nicholas Stern and Bob Ward, as well as a foreword from Risky Business cochairs Michael Bloomberg, Henry Paulson, and Thomas Steyer, the book speaks to scientists, researchers, scholars, activists, and policy makers. It depicts the distribution of escalating climate-change risk across the country and assesses its effects on aspects of the economy as varied as hurricane damages and violent crime. Beautifully illustrated and accessibly written, this book is an essential tool for helping businesses and governments prepare for the future.

Climate Change and the Governance of Corporations

Climate Change and the Governance of Corporations PDF Author: Rory Sullivan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000075559
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 149

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Book Description
Climate change represents the most important environmental challenge of our time. Organisations are responding by implementing governance processes and taking action to reduce their own emissions and the emissions from their supply chains and value chains. Yet very little is known about how these efforts contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions (if, indeed, they make any substantive contribution at all) or about how they might be harnessed to deliver more ambitious reductions in emissions. This book explains when and where particular forms of governance intervention – including internal governance processes and external governance pressures – are likely to impact climate change. From this analysis, it offers practical proposals on the climate policy frameworks that need to be in place to facilitate or accelerate changes in corporate behaviour. The book is truly global: it focuses on the world’s 25 largest retailers (including Walmart, Tesco, Carrefour, Sears and Aldi) and is based on detailed interviews with senior managers from these corporations, and with key global and national NGOs, corporate responsibility experts, politicians and regulators. These interviews provide clear insights into how external governance pressures and actions (public opinion, regulation, incentives) interact with internal governance conditions (management systems and processes, corporate policies, board/CEO leadership) to change and shape corporate actions on climate change and, in turn, the climate change impacts of these corporations. This book can be used as a core reference for any courses dealing with corporate governance and business strategy, in particular those relating to climate change and to environmental management more generally. It is also of relevance to business practitioners, public policy makers, investors and NGOs interested in ensuring that companies play a constructive role in the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Climate Change: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review

Climate Change: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review PDF Author: Harvard Business Review
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
ISBN: 1633699935
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 91

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Book Description
Climate change is threatening our world. How are you responding? Heat waves, flooding, extreme storms, harsh winters. The effects of climate change are only getting worse. How can you ensure your organization is taking the right steps to mitigate this threat--and what can you, as an individual, do to help? These articles by experts and researchers will help you understand how climate change is affecting the future of business. Climate Change: The Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review will prepare you to join in the current discussion, identify immediate and long-term risks for your company, and plan for the future. Business is changing. Will you adapt or be left behind? Get up to speed and deepen your understanding of the topics that are shaping your company's future with the Insights You Need from Harvard Business Review series. Featuring HBR's smartest thinking on fast-moving issues--blockchain, cybersecurity, AI, and more--each book provides the foundational introduction and practical case studies your organization needs to compete today and collects the best research, interviews, and analysis to get it ready for tomorrow. You can't afford to ignore how these issues will transform the landscape of business and society. The Insights You Need series will help you grasp these critical ideas--and prepare you and your company for the future.

Climate Change, Capitalism, and Corporations

Climate Change, Capitalism, and Corporations PDF Author: Christopher Wright
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316409325
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
Climate change is one of the greatest threats facing humanity, a definitive manifestation of the well-worn links between progress and devastation. This book explores the complex relationship that the corporate world has with climate change and examines the central role of corporations in shaping political and social responses to the climate crisis. The principal message of the book is that despite the need for dramatic economic and political change, corporate capitalism continues to rely on the maintenance of 'business as usual'. The authors explore the different processes through which corporations engage with climate change. Key discussion points include climate change as business risk, corporate climate politics, the role of justification and compromise, and managerial identity and emotional reactions to climate change. Written for researchers and graduate students, this book moves beyond descriptive and normative approaches to provide a sociologically and critically informed theory of corporate responses to climate change.

Carbon Governance, Climate Change and Business Transformation

Carbon Governance, Climate Change and Business Transformation PDF Author: Adam Bumpus
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135067864
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Transformation to a low carbon economy is a central tenet to any discussion on the solutions to the complex challenges of climate change and energy security. Despite advances in policy, carbon management and continuing development of clean technology, fundamental business transformation has not occurred because of multiple political, economic, social and organisational issues. Carbon Governance, Climate Change and Business Transformation is based on leading academic and industry input, and three international workshops focused on low carbon transformation in leading climate policy jurisdictions (Canada, USA and the UK) under the international Carbon Governance Project (CGP) banner. The book pulls insights from this innovative collaborative network to identify the policy combinations needed to create transformative change. It explores fundamental questions about how governments and the private sector conceptualize the problem of climate change, the conditions under which business transformation can genuinely take place and key policy and business innovations needed. Broadly, the book is based on emerging theories of multi-levelled, multi-actor carbon governance, and applies these ideas to the real world implications for tackling climate change through business transformation. Conceptually and empirically, this book stimulates both academic discussion and practical business models for low carbon transformation.