Presentations
On November 21, 2003, Professor John Holdren opened a United Nations symposium on the financial implications of global warming for top global money mangers with a presentation on the character of climate-change risks.
The proposition behind the Institutional Investor Summit on Climate Risk was that climate change poses risks for a wide array of businesses, and that both businesses and their stockholders should be aware of the magnitude of those risks and what businesses can do to support prevention, reduce their exposure, adapt to changing circumstances, and exploit opportunities that meeting the climate-change challenge will present.
The audience included a remarkable array of some of the biggest money managers in the nation (the amount of money under management by those in the room was said to be in excess of four trillion dollars), including the State Treasurers of California, Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington DC; the fiduciaries who manage these states' pension funds; the CEOs of Swiss Re and Munich Re; Managing Directors of Goldman Sachs, Lehman, Lazard, and other investment banks; representatives of most of the country's largest commercial banks; representatives of a number of foundations; and others.
Kofi Annan gave a talk on climate change and its intersection with the core interests of the UN. Al Gore was the luncheon speaker and participated in the meeting for the full day. The Belfer Center’s own John Ruggie was one of about twenty distinguished "convenors" of the meeting. Other speakers included UNEP head Klaus Toepfer, former OMB head and Clinton Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, the State Treasurers of California and New York, and the CEO of Swiss Re.
The Symposium, which was held at the United Nations in New York, was organized by the UN Foundation and CERES (Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies, a Boston-based NGO) and was the brainchild of Tim Wirth, CERES leaders Robert Massie and Mindy Lubber, and Connecticut State Treasurer Denise Nappier.
Attached here is a stand-alone version of the PowerPoint prepared by Professor Holdren, with extra text added in place of the Professor’s narration. The file is 3.3 megabytes.