They should found a hedge fund then to prove John Cochrane wrong when he testified that “But climate change poses no measurable risk to the financial system. This emperor has no clothes. “Risk” means unforeseen events. We know exactly where the climate is going over the horizon that financial regulation can contemplate. Weather is risky, but even the biggest floods, hurricanes, and heat waves have essentially no impact on our financial system.
Moreover, the financial system is only at risk when banks as a whole lose so much, and so suddenly, that they blow through their loan-loss reserves and capital, and a run on their short-term debt erupts. That climate may cause a sudden, unexpected and enormous economic effect, in the next decade, which could endanger the financial system, is an even more fantastic fantasy.
Sure, we don’t know what will happen in 100 years. But banks did not fail in 2008 because they bet on radios not TV in the 1920s. Banks failed over mortgage investments made in 2006. Trouble in 2100 will come from investments made in 2095. Financial regulation does not and cannot pretend to look past 5 years or so, and there is just no climate risk to the financial system at this horizon.”
We survey 861 finance academics, professionals, and public sector regulators and policy economists about climate finance topics.
They identify regulatory risk as the top climate risk to businesses and investors over the next five years, but they view physical risks as the top risk over the next 30 years.
By an overwhelming margin, respondents believe that asset prices underestimate climate risks.
We also tabulate opinions about the correlation between growth and climate change; social discount rates appropriate for projects that mitigate the effects of climate change; most influential forces for reducing climate risks; and, most important research topics.
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