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From: Tom Gray <tomgray@igc.org>

[from Wind Energy Weekly #689, 18 March 1996]

INSURANCE GROUPS, GREENPEACE TAKE
AIM AT CLIMATE CHANGE ACTION

     The financial community, business leaders, and
environmentalists have a common stake in studying and responding
to the impacts of global climate change, the environmental group
Greenpeace said March 7 in announcing the publication of a new
book on the subject, CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE FINANCIAL SECTOR: THE
EMERGING THREAT, THE SOLAR SOLUTION.

     Greenpeace, better known for its confrontational
demonstrations and media events, has opted in the case of climate
change for a long-running dialogue over the past few years with
leaders of the insurance industry and other investment groups,
and the book is a part of that activity.

     Edited by Greenpeace's Dr. Jeremy Leggett and published by
Gerling Group, one of Germany's premier insurance concerns,
CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE FINANCIAL SECTOR, Greenpeace said in a
news release, "shows clearly--from the standpoint of financial
insiders--that climate change caused by overconsumption of fossil
fuels threatens the stability of the world's financial
institutions."  The book goes on to prescribe clean, renewable
energy sources like solar and wind as the means of achieving
future prosperity and stability.

     Among the book's contributors is Robert Kelly, Co-Chairman
of U.S.-based solar photovoltaics manufacturer Amoco/Enron Solar.
"I believe there is a significant global market for solar power.
. . As the efforts of the world to deal with sustainability
increase, solar power will make a larger and larger contribution,
taking the world through the fourth millennium," Kelly said.

     The independent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC), a large United Nations-sponsored group of experts
investigating the issue, has stated that if fossil fuel
greenhouse gas emissions continue at anywhere near current
levels, the planet will warm up dangerously, and could well
experience a devastating increase in the frequency and intensity
of so-called natural disasters.  At a news conference in New
York, Leggett, Director of Greenpeace International's Solar
Initiative, said financial industries are waking up to this
threat.

     "Believing that a healthy environment and strong economy go
hand in hand, Greenpeace has forged links with major insurance
and reinsurance companies, banks and investment firms throughout
the world," Leggett said.  "We recognize our shared interests and
are calling on governments to take stronger measures now to cut
the release of C02 into the atmosphere."

     Another contributor, Greenpeace said, may have summed up the
issue best. Carlos Joly, a senior vice president at UNI
Storebrand of Norway, wrote, "What does it do us to cash in
investments twenty years from now if the world goes to hell
partly as a result of what we invest in?"

     One of the central obstacles to taking action on climate
change, Joly noted at the news conference, is that there are not
yet established markets that can absorb the type of large
financial investments that the insurance community would be in a
position to make.  UNI Storebrand, he said, plans to roll out an
"environmental value" fund in May that will invest in companies
based on environmental criteria.  Commented Joly, "It's not
enough to give a good return--we have to take responsibility for
taking care of some of the quality-of-life conditions our pension
fund holders will be living in [in the future.]"

     Other contributors to CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE FINANCIAL
SECTOR include representatives of the Reinsurance Association of
America, Gerling Group, General Accident (UK), Union Bank of
Switzerland and National Westminster Bank (UK and US).

     Timothy Wirth, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Global
Affairs says, "CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE FINANCIAL SECTOR [is] . . .
an important step forward . . . [that] needs to be considered by
the financial community everywhere--especially in the United
States."

_______________________________________________________________________________

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____________________________________________________________________________

Tom Gray 					          tomgray@econet.org
____________________________________________________________________________

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