Carbon Tracker Initiative's Washington, DC launch with WRI: "Unburnable carbon: Wasted capital and stranded assets"

WRI and the Carbon Tracker Initiative invite you to join us in receiving the 2013 report, hear how the analysis has developed and pose questions to those involved in its production.

We know that continuing the current rate at which we are burning fossil fuel reserves has disastrous social and economic effects and is a key driver of global climate change. As we fast approach these limits, governments will – however unevenly - introduce laws of increasing severity to prevent passing the 2 degree C mark. Who will be holding these carbon assets when this happens?

The London based Carbon Tracker Initiative’s first report Unburnable Carbon published in 2011 has become the reference text for investors and policymakers on this issue. This new report provides essential insight for participants in capital markets, bringing investors, regulators, analysts, ratings agencies and policymakers together to tackle the risk of fossil fuel reserves on financial markets.

This report reveals the extent to which listed companies continue to explore for new reserves in spite of this warning, spending billions every year in exploration and development, although some two-thirds of known reserves of fossil fuels will have to stay in the ground to have any chance of ensuring a stable climate. This has implications for the way in which companies are valued, how capital is raised and capital markets are regulated.

SPEAKERS

• Mark Campanale, Director, Carbon Tracker Initiative

• Luke Sussams, Senior Researcher, Carbon Tracker Initiative

“Carbon Tracker’s work on Unburnable Carbon should be compulsory reading for anyone in finance. Asset managers, regulators and ratings agencies need to make sure they are not on the wrong side of this issue.”
Michael Liebreich, Founder Bloomberg New Energy Finance

Institutions such as HSBC Bank, the International Energy Agency and Standard and Poor’s are increasingly recognizing this risk, described by world-renowned economist Lord Stern as a “profound contradiction between declared public policy and the valuations of these listed companies.”