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CLIMATE FINANCE AND ITS GOVERNANCE: MOVING TO A LOW CARBON ECONOMY THROUGH SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE FINANCING?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 July 2009

Benjamin J Richardson
Affiliation:
Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Canada. brichardson@osgoode.yorku.cg

Abstract

‘Climate finance’ is becoming an important feature of the emerging legal and policy regimes to address global warming. However, the current approach largely confines the financial sector to a transactional agent to mobilise capital for clean energy and to broker emission allowance trading. The sector's potential to leverage more sweeping positive changes in the economy as sought historically through the movement for socially responsible investment (SRI) has been insufficiently acknowledged. Indirectly, by regulating greenhouse gases the legal system is helping to create a business case for investors to respond to climate change threats. However, the potential contribution of SRI to address climate change problems more comprehensively is presently limited owing to inadequate governance frameworks, as well the sector's increasing abandonment of its traditional ethical agenda.

Type
Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 British Institute of International and Comparative Law

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160 Ford published its report on 2005, and claimed to have reduced carbon emissions from its manufacturing facilities by 15 per cent, with further reductions planned, and was adopting measures to improve the fuel efficiency of its cars: Ford Motor Company, Ford Report on the Business Impact of Climate Change (Ford, Dearborn, Michigan, 2005) 3.

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168 Carbon footprints of investment portfolios are already been measures: Trucost, Carbon Counts 2007: The Carbon Footprint Ranking of UK Investment (Trucost, London, 2007).