The market purist argument is that the system should regulate itself; because if climate change really is a material risk for businesses, it should be built into the way companies are valued. Companies whose factories or plantations could be destroyed by climate change-induced floods or droughts should be less attractive investments than ones making wind turbines or hybrid car engines.

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If a house of cards collapses it happens either because of its own weight and instability or because of an external force – a nudge, a jolt, a passing breeze.

 

The conventional wisdom about the collapse of the house of cards that the banks built is that it’s the former. It’s purely down to greed – bankers building an unsustainable edifice of funny money with their CDOs, CDSs and other fancy derivatives, one that inevitably came crashing down around their ears.

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper’.

 

Well, so much for 'Hopenhagen' - the idea that the Copenhagen climate talks would lead to a new treaty on climate change and usher in a bright new green dawn. Despite all the hope and energy invested in it, the event fell way short of what had been expected. So what happened? And what next?

This blog reproduces a piece written by Tomorrow’s Company climate change specialist David Vigar for a conference at the London School of Economics. Delegates were asked to answer the question: “What is the biggest obstacle governments in industrialised economies have to overcome in achieving low-carbon transition and what action should they prioritise?”