The world's presidents, prime ministers, business executives, and various billionaires are meeting in Davos, Switzerland this week for the World Economic Forum's 49th annual meeting. Davos 2020 is titled "Stakeholders for a Cohesive and Sustainable World," making climate change this year's main topic of discussion as the forum warned that the biggest risks facing the world are environmentally-linked .
"The planet is heating, the ice is melting, and we see that the library of species are on fire," Borge Brende, president of World Economic Forum stated. "It's really, really serious."
More global executives have become focused on investments towards more environmentally focused companies. Investing in solutions to climate change is "an enormous opportunity and I would say obligation for the private sector to coalesce around this common theme," according to Standard Chartered Bank (OTC: SCBFF) CEO Bill Waters.
Bank of England governor Mark Carney stated on a panel on Tuesday that climate concerns are no longer niche trends, but have become a "fundamental value driver" in finance. And it seems that Europe is heading the trend. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyan told delegates at Davos that the European Union's goal is to be the first climate neutral continent by 2050, citing that the "World Economic Forum's global risk report identifies the top five risks for our economy [to be] all climate-related."
Investment giant BlackRock's (NYSE: BLK) Global Head of Sustainable Investing Brian Deese defined the firm's sustainability strategy in an interview as "combining the best of traditional investing" with insight about the environment, society, and governance, in order to "generate a better long-term outcome" to their clients. With BlackRock being such a large financial entity, it seems that other companies investment trends may follow BlackRock's lead.
World executives seem to be addressing the climate change issue after BlackRock's CEO Larry Fink addressed the issue in his annual letter to corporate executives, whether they agree on this issue or not. Credit Suisse (NYSE: CS) CEO Tidjane Thiam said on a panel that going climate neutral would cost the world "trillions of dollars."