Most of Asia’s bankers ignore climate risks. Hmm. Rich and dumb, or rich and skeptical?

A survey in Asia found that 69% of financial institutions there don’t bother with assessing climate change risks when considering financing projects. Either these bankers have missed the last 20 years of IPCC messaging (careless inattentive bankers), or they’ve seen it and they know it’s baloney (skeptical bankers). Hmmm. What’s more likely?

Looks like two thirds of Asian banks don’t believe the IPCC:

[The new survey] …undertaken by Asia Research and Engagement with support of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited, … found that 31 per cent of the institutions factored climate change risks into their financing operations, with 61 per cent of banks referring to green products and 56 per cent providing some quantification of their exposure.

It said financial institution were factoring climate change risks into their policies and offered green finance products. But only over a quarter of banks referred to climate change factors as a reason to limit financing .…

The bottom line is always where the money goes.

So over two thirds of financial institutions couldn’t care less about those forecasts of beachside apartments sinking under the waves, or cities becoming unlivable, nor of coal mines supposedly going broke. Nor do they think the average investor is likely to run from these either.

How many rich bankers are there that read the UN First Assessment Report in 1990 and knocked back loans to coal, oil, and car magnates, and beach-side property moguls? The IPCC has made some people rich, but it wasn’t the investors who believed their climate predictions.

The article waxes lyrical about the wondrous trillion dollar investment opportunity. If someone discovered $7 trillion dollars of gold in Kazakhstan, who thinks they would have to survey bankers 20 years later to find out whether they were aware of the risks and opportunities…?

Read more at: Economic Times, India

h/t Willie

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