It's not just about Polar Bears.....
Paul Fisher, former MPC member, and former deputy head of the PRA, writes in IPE "If the financial crisis taught us anything, it is that the improbable and unprecedented can happen". In the property world, although the behaviour of the markets might indicate otherwise, we would surely all agree, having seen it all go wrong in so many different ways before.
The new slant, of course, is of the risks posed to that world by climate change, whether plain physical, such as via flooding, financial, as markets change or collapse, or in any other "black swan" and unthought-of way.
The scientific evidence for climate change is there. It is very much up to us all to evaluate the risks that this poses to our real estate
"But new risks are emerging around climate change that are poorly understood, hard to manage and, at the extreme, pose threats to the financial system not unlike those we faced in 2008.This may seem overblown, especially for an issue that many people assert to be long-term and slow moving. But the climate is clearly changing, and will not do so smoothly.Either the planet will suffer some catastrophic changes in climate or dramatic policies will have to be adopted to change the growth path to one in which we emit a lot less carbon – probably net-zero or less. If policy does not react early enough, both outcomes are likely. Arguing about the cause, or the costs, will just delay the inevitable policy action and make the consequences worse."”
