Get the scoop on the major sustainability stories this week with our quick-read news digest.
01/02/22
This past week was filled with interesting sustainability and climate news, we’ve summarised the top stories below.
Over 60% of investors would pull out of ‘greenwashing’ funds
New research has shown that investors have a low tolerance for funds they suspect of ‘greenwashing’.
The research also found that investors have a lack of confidence that funds labelled as ‘ESG’ or ‘ethical’ are acting suitably sustainably.
This uncovered a critical communications issue, in which the current descriptions and labels for funds fail to give investors sufficient information on their ESG alignment.
Climate change nearly twice as bad when factoring in humidity
New climate change research suggests that examining temperature alone isn’t the best way to explain climate change’s effects on extreme weather, especially in the tropics.
When the energy from humidity is considered as well as temperature in global warming calculations, the amount of warming nearly doubles (from 0.79C to 1.48C), and weather extremes correlate much better.
Heightened humidity results in weather extremes, including floods, storms, and droughts, and is currently most pronounced in the tropics.
A new study has highlighted the huge energy inequality between richer and poorer nations.
The study found that in just two days, the average Brit produces more carbon dioxide emissions than the average citizen of the DRC produces in an entire year.
These findings have drawn attention to the climate hypocrisy, in which wealthy countries are trying to impose fossil fuel financing bans on poor countries, whilst increasing their own consumption of fossil fuels.
Experts argue that this will not only entrench poverty, but will also do little to reduce the world’s carbon emissions.
Investors warned nuclear and gas investments are not green
Deep concerns have been raised regarding the harms of the EU’s proposal that nuclear and gas energy sources should be labelled as sustainable under the EU Sustainable Finance Taxonomy.
The proposed definitions are considered to be against climate science.
If the EU’s proposal is accepted by European institutions, experts state that investors must be warned that “using the taxonomy as it is, especially for the financial products that are marketed as sustainable and for green bonds, will be seen as greenwashing.”
