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BOE’s Carney Says Lack of U.S. Climate Engagement Is Difficult

BOE’s Carney Says Lack of U.S. Climate Engagement Is Difficult

(Bloomberg) --

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney warned of mounting risks to the financial sector and the economy from climate change, and urged the U.S. to play bigger role.

“Something which was largely on the periphery of finance has come into the mainstream,” Carney told Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait at the Bloomberg Climate Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “Transition risk has become more important.”

BOE’s Carney Says Lack of U.S. Climate Engagement Is Difficult

Carney will step down as governor in March and be an adviser to U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson for the COP26 United Nations conference. He’s also due to become a UN special envoy on climate action.

He has warned for years that investors risk seeing the value of their carbon-related assets drop in value as the world moves toward greener regulations and policies.

Carney spoke a day after U.S. President Donald Trump used his speech in Davos to tout the benefits of soaring American oil and gas production and make a thinly veiled attack on those who warn about looming environmental catastrophe.

Asked if the world could contain global warming without the U.S., the governor said: “It’s much more difficult.”

He added that U.S. companies are concerned with climate change and some of the leading thinking and technology are coming from the world’s largest economy.

Carney backed carbon taxes as one tool for reducing emissions but he’s “not naive” about them, saying they can be regressive, and they’re just one of multiple instruments needed.

To contact the reporters on this story: Paul Gordon in Frankfurt at pgordon6@bloomberg.net;Lucy Meakin in London at lmeakin1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaa Shahine at asalha@bloomberg.net, Brian Swint

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