CBEY Report Takes On the Business of Climate Change

With the call for new ways to address climate change growing in Washington, DC, the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale (CBEY) has released a report analyzing the rapidly developing carbon finance market.

According to a 2007 United Nations report, 85% of the multibillion dollar investment to address climate change now comes from the private sector, not government. The global carbon market logged $64 billion in trades in 2007 and was on track to top $100 billion last year. One recent forecast predicted that the trade would reach $1 trillion annually by 2020, assuming that the United States joins the market with the passage of a cap-and-trade system now being discussed in Congress.

Co-edited by CBEY program director Bryan Garcia and researcher Eric Roberts, "Carbon Finance: Environmental Market Solutions to Climate Change" is a compilation of lectures on, among other themes, the problem-solving role of finance in confronting climate change; the need for investors to factor climate change into their investment strategies; the value of carbon and renewable energy; the role of regulation in a functioning environmental market; hedge funds and climate change; venture capital and the challenge of funding new technologies; the link between the insurance industry and climate change; and the complexities and opportunities facing the forest products business.

"This publication represents a major advance in our understanding of the interrelationships of government policy, private markets and technology in the climate arena," says CBEY director Brad Gentry in the report's foreword. 

The Center for Business and the Environment at Yale, which is operated jointly by the Yale School of Management and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, provides a focal point for research, education, and outreach to advance business solutions to global environmental problems. Its work connects students, executives, academics, and policy-makers, and spans issues from environmental finance to corporate social responsibility.

Video on the new report and its implications for climate change. (8:19)