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Hot Topics: Climate Change

There is a consensus among the world's leading scientists that the global climate is changing rapidly and that industrial emissions are the root cause of these changes. The exact impacts of a changed climate remain unclear, but the evidence points to more frequent and intense severe weather events, significant sea level rise, and increased tropical disease, drought, and famine. Some scientists and economists have argued that the implications of climate change are on the order of trillions of dollars.

The following articles attempt to chronicle the economic impact of climate change on the global economy.

Selected articles

Due to contractual arrangements, access to some articles may be restricted to the Stanford community, and subscribers of the "Library Databases" offered through the GSB Alumni's Lifelong Learning Program. Inclusion below does not imply University endorsement of the ideas expressed.

UPDATE: US Senate Votes To Proceed On Climate Change Bill. CNN Money, June 2, 2008
The U.S. Senate voted Monday to go forward with legislation to cut greenhouse-gas emissions dramatically by mid-century, giving a lift to environmentalists who hope to limit the damage from climate change. View Article

NASA watchdog says press office distorted climate studies. USA Today, June 2008
"Political appointees" in NASA's press office "marginalized, or mischaracterized" studies on global warming between 2004 and 2006, the space agency's inspector general said in a report released today. View Article

Climate change resulting in shift to ‘green’ economies, says UN agency. UN News Centre, 20 February 2008
More and more companies are embracing environmentally-friendly policies and investors are pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into cleaner and renewable energies, according to a new publication released today by the United Nations Environment Programme. "Increasingly, combating climate change is being perceived as an opportunity rather than a burden and a path to a new kind of prosperity as opposed to a brake on profits and employment,” according to the new report.
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Trillions turn green Investment dollars flow to climate change, clean tech. MarketWatch, Feb. 18, 2008
Institutional investors are committing billions of dollars to investments in climate change and are embarking on a bold new action plan to raise the profile of energy efficiency and clean technologies around the world.
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Winemakers mull climate change at Barcelona conference. AFP, 2/14/2008
Carbon dixoide storage -- rather than grapes and vintages -- was on the agenda at a wine-makers conference in Barcelona Saturday, as vintners mulled ways to reduce the industry's greenhouse gas emissions. Not everyone is aware that wine production emits large quantities of CO2, the main gas responsible for climate change. View article

How Big Oil Could Help on Climate Change in Iraq. U.S. News & World Report, February 15, 2008
Flaring is the cheap and dirty way to get rid of combustible fuel when there are no pipelines, gas-fired power plants, or export terminals nearby. Flaring  releases of millions of tons of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere. It is hoped that big oil can partner with the Iraq to stop the waste and help the environment. View article

Lawmakers push for "green-collar" jobs as climate change looms. Seattle Post Intelligencer, February 9, 2008
Washington State lawmakers passed a bill setting goals for reducing emissions over the next four decades, and increasing clean-energy jobs to 25,000 by 2020. View article

Investors Request Disclosure of Climate Emissions, Strategies. Environment News Service, February 6, 2008
The Carbon Disclosure Project, a collaboration of 385 institutional investors with assets under management of $57 trillion, has issued its 2008 information request to the world's largest corporations. Companies are requested to measure and disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and report on their strategy for dealing with risks and opportunities associated with climate change. View article

Climate change becomes a U.S. Republican issue too.
Wed Feb 6, 2008
This could be the year Republicans, the party of President George W. Bush, use climate change as a rallying cry at election time. It could also differentiate Republican presidential contenders from Bush administration policies that have left the United States isolated among the world's biggest developed countries. View article

Global Climate Change Response Can Spur $7 Trillion in Clean Energy Investment by 2030: CERA Analysis. FOXBusiness, Feb 05, 2008
Public concerns about climate change -- and its potential economic and political security consequences -- are driving public policy and private investment to bring clean energy technologies from the fringes of the global energy industry to the center of activities as quickly as possible, a new analysis by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) has concluded. View article

Former oil company exec takes on global warming.
Gazette News Service-Ann Arbor, February 01, 2008
For the first 10 years or so that Steve Percy traveled around the country talking about climate change issues, his message was simple: It's happening.
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Climate change threatens West's water, world's crops.
USA Today, 2/1/08
One of the studies published in the journal Science found that nearly 60% of the changes in river flow, snow pack and winter temperatures in the West over the past 50 years are due to warming caused by human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas.
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The Real Costs of Saving the Planet. Business Week Online, 12/5/07
The article focuses on the analysis from McKinsey & Co. regarding the cost of limiting carbon emissions.
View article [icon - Stanford Network]

California fighting global warming with technology, greenbacks. San Francisco Chronicle, 11/14/07
California is leading the way in the fight against global warming as its investors have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into green technology companies and its citizens have cut per-capita emissions of greenhouse gases by nearly 10 percent in recent years.
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A Strategic Approach to Climate. Harvard Business Review, Oct 2007
The article discusses strategic planning for operational effectiveness and the reduction of climate-related risks, in light of the expected impact of climate change and regulation of greenhouse gas emissions on corporations.
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Sen. Boxer in Silicon Valley to emphasize conservation. San Francisco Chronicle, 8/15/07
U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer turned to Silicon Valley Tuesday to illustrate one of her favorite points - that fighting climate change won't kill the economy.
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Carbon crackdown. Houston Chronicle, 7/17/07
After years of talking about the threat of climate change while Congress did nothing about it, a bipartisan coalition of senators has finally produced a prototype piece of legislation that aims to reduce industrial emissions of greenhouse gases heating the globe.
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Report calls on Europe to move on global warming. International Herald Tribune, 6/25/07
Europe must start work now to protect power stations, transport systems and agriculture from flooding, droughts, forest fires and landslides likely to be caused by global warming, according to the draft of a report due out this week.
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In climate change debate, all eyes turn to California. Associated Press, 6/21/07
While sometimes ridiculed for its granola image and left-leaning tendencies, California also has set the agenda for clean air, clean water and other health standards that later become the norm in middle America.
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'Cap and trade' gaining favor. San Francisco Chronicle, 3/21/07
Congress taking up business-friendly proposals to reduce global warming.
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Push to Fix Ozone Layer and Slow Global Warming. New York Times, 3/15/07
An unusual coalition of industrial and developing countries began pushing Wednesday for stringent limits on the world's most popular refrigerant for air-conditioners, as evidence mounts that the refrigerant harms the earth's ozone layer and contributes to global warming.
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Climate Change's Cold Economics. WSJ Online, 2/15/07
With mandatory curbs on U.S. global-warming emissions looking increasingly likely in the next several years, industries are starting to argue over who will pay for the cleanup. One thing is clear: Whatever the cost, it will get passed along to consumers.
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The Cost of an Overheated Planet. New York Times, 12/12/06
The iconic culprit in global warming is the coal-fired power plant. It burns the dirtiest, most carbon-laden of fuels, and its smokestacks belch millions of tons of carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas.
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Talks to Start on Climate Amid Split on Warming. New York Times, 11/5/06
Climate negotiators are gathering in Nairobi, Kenya, for their 12th conference since 1992, with the world divided into three seemingly inflexible blocs on what to do about global warming.
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Investors spotlight global warming. Fortune, 9/18/06
About 225 institutional investors, who together have $31 trillion in assets, have put their names behind an ambitious and growing effort to analyze the ways that the world's biggest companies are dealing with climate change.
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Businesses divided over warming bill's bottom line. San Francisco Chronicle, 8/17/06
A push to make California the first state in the country to cap greenhouse gas emissions has many businesses split over whether the new limits would hobble the state's economy or create jobs and big profits.
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Business On A Warmer Planet. BusinessWeek Online, 7/17/06
Rising temperatures and later winters are already costing millions. How some companies are adapting to the new reality.
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A Refinery Clears the Air to Grow Roses. New York Times, 6/30/06
A few miles north of Rotterdam, in a region the Dutch call "glass city" for its thousands of greenhouses, gardeners like Frank van Os are part of an unconventional experiment by Royal Dutch Shell to curb carbon emissions.
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You Have Been Warmed. San Francisco Chronicle, 6/2/06
The most important movie of the year has arrived and guess what, it's about global warming. Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", while full of really bad news, is funny and exhilarating and a film that Mick LaSalle says "everyone should see."
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Nuclear backers' energy surges; they say alternative would ease concern over global warming. San Francisco Chronicle, 5/19/06
The nuclear power industry, benefiting from fears of global warming, now faces its best chance in years to overcome skeptics and build plants, proponents said Thursday at a San Francisco convention.
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The Next Green Revolution. Wired, May 2006
How technology is leading environmentalism out of the anti-business, anti-consumer wilderness.
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It's a Little Easier Being Green. BusinessWeek, 4/10/2006
The article reports on TerraPass Inc., a company which sells "green tags" to consumers who wish to help the environment. The green tags, which cost up to $80 a year, give TerraPass funds with which to invest in clean energy production, such as wind power.
View article [icon - Stanford Network]

Quest for clean energy Chevron, PG&E cited for positive steps to combat global warming. San Francisco Chronicle, 3/22/06
After years of denial or uncertainty, many of the world's largest corporations have started taking global warming seriously and are looking for ways to fight it.
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Winds of climate change are about to make their impact felt in many a boardroom. The Guardian, 2/6/06
Sir David King said concentrations of greenhouse gases were already at a level where the warning signs were flashing red: a comment that starkly illustrates the impending clash between economic orthodoxy and environmental sustainability.
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Company Profiles:

Video:

Earth in the balance: ecology and the human spirit. A speech by Al Gore.
View Video ( 13:44 min.)

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Page updated by: Nora Richardson