As we close out Climate Week, we need to check in on global temperature. It is climbing. Climate scientists, environmental advocates, legislators, etc. have taken to talking about “climate change” because there has been so much rhetorical pushback about “global warming”. But as the data shows, global average annual temperatures are demonstrably higher as compared to the long-term average over the last century, and decisively trending higher from the pre-Industrial period. In finance we use charts that look like this to argue the benefits of investing in stocks. Trend followers would consider this a definitive and stable factor. Climate change is the outcome and global warming is the driving factor. From a capital markets point of view a professional investor would be derelict for ignoring this data. Scientists still believe mean reversion is possible if we withdraw greenhouse gases (GHGs) from the system. Prudent investment involves deploying capital for mitigation – the reduction in GHGs to reduce climate volatility – and resilience – improving infrastructure, businesses and communities to be able to handle or ideally prevent climate-related damage. [chart courtesy NOAA, August 2020 – https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature]
