This week Greta Thunberg, the teenage activist, stole the show at the UN General Assembly meetings in New York with an impassioned plea for urgent action on climate change.
It was electrifying. However, if investors need a further reason to wake up, they should take note of another event: the release by a UN-supported entity, called Principles for Responsible Investment, of a report warning that “financial markets today have not adequately priced-in the likely near-term policy response to climate change”.
Indeed, the PRI — whose membership includes some 500 global asset managers — predicts a market “response by 2025 that will be forceful, abrupt and disorderly because of the delay”. In plain English, they expect a market shock.