Last week we rubbed elbows with energy and environment movers and shakers from academia, media, NGOs, business, and finance (well, mostly finance) at a swank luncheon in the Frank-Gehry-designed IAC Building on Manhattan’s west side. The wine was biodynamic, the meal was carbon-neutral, and the occasion was the launch of Deutsche Bank’s “Carbon Counter” in Times Square in New York, which shows the number of tons of carbon dioxide equivalents in the atmosphere – currently at some 3.6 trillion metric tons – racing ever higher. (Professor John Reilly of MIT, who helped design the counter, noted that its figure smooths over the well-known seasonal fluctuations in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, lest the clock ever be seen running backwards.) Kevin Parker, head of Deutsche Bank Climate Change Advisors fund, who conceived the project, explained that the display aims to dramatize the problem of rising CO2 levels and their impact on the climate, to “keep the conversation going,” and – not least – to “factor into the debate” ongoing in the U.S. Congress about carbon cap-and-trade legislation. Of course, any additional attention the clock draws to Deutsche Bank’s reputation for thought leadership in energy and environmental investments won’t dismay the firm, either.
Dignitaries ranging from economist and Earth Institute head Jeffrey Sachs to Fred Krupp of Environmental Defense Fund lined up to praise the project and express hope that it’d accelerate political action on climate change. While the prose grew a bit purple at times – Robert Socolow of Princeton University’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative opined that the clock might “promote planetary thinking… planetary identity” – Deutsche Bank’s effort is aimed at an important problem: public support for increasingly painful actions by governments to mitigate climate change. Government’s role includes positive actions like subsidizing renewable energy technologies and promoting structural changes like the smart grid, but also negative ones like imposing a price on carbon to account for its environmental impact – all of which require public support. The Carbon Counter is unlikely to swing popular opinion on its own (after all, the similarly-conceived U.S. National Debt Clock has failed in its mission spectacularly enough that its proprietors recently had to add another digit), but it can certainly help contribute to winning citizens’ attention and support.
Beyond the feel-good consciousness-raising, the size and seemingly inexorable rise of the carbon number the clock displays raises tough questions. The drivers of increased emissions are powerful, especially rising population and booming GDP in the developing world – and, as Jeffrey Sachs pointed out, “China and India are coal-based,” and likely to rely heavily on that most carbon-intense fuel as their economies advance. All told, even if “green” (or greening) developed nations hit their most ambitious renewable energy and energy efficiency goals, carbon levels in the atmosphere look likely to continue to rise – and the early effects of climate change are making themselves felt already. Thus, it’s not too soon for forward-thinking companies and investors to start devoting efforts not just to preventing climate change, but to preparing for it, as well – for instance, with technologies like advanced desalination or engineered drought-resistant crops that can aid regions newly parched by shifting weather patterns. (Indeed, mitigating the impact of the climate change is part – albeit a quieter one – of the mandate of Deutsche Asset Management’s climate change investment.) Most politicians and environmentalists have shied away from this suggestion, with its aura of defeatism, but the debate is likely to come around more and more to preparation in coming years.
