“Ethical Markets highly recommends all the efforts focusing on the climate crisis by the Grantham Institute at LSE. However, we were appalled at some of LSE’s funder, Jeremy Grantham’s recent interview on Bloomberg, giving support to obsolete economists and politicians opposing President Biden’s initial Covid Relief package of $1.9 trillion now discussed in Congress.
While Grantham is an exemplary green transition investor, he needs to update his macroeconomic model.
As I continue to point out over the past 30 years: Of course deficits and debts matter! But so do the valuable assets they create, which are still missing from GDP accounts, which focus on debt-to GDP ratios.
If GDP and other macroeconomic stats were honest, and GDP had an asset account, and included investments in education (still treated as “expenses”) and health, environmental quality and clarified “avoided costs”, perhaps Grantham would update his views. These changes updating GDP could cut debt-to-GDP ratios by up to 50% with a few keystrokes! (see, for example, my “Statisticians of the World Unite!”, Oct 2003, InterPress News Service on the First International Conference on Implementing Indicators of Sustainability & Quality of Life” (ICONS), Curitiba, Brazil, and the “Beyond GDP“ surveys by Ethical Markets and Globescan”, first presented at the EU Conference “BEYOND GDP“, 2007 www.beyond-gdp.eu and later surveys in 2009, 2013 and 2020 finding similar super majorities in 12 countries for expanding GDP www.ethicalmarkets.com
~Hazel Henderson, Editor“
Supporting adaptation action and climate resilience in 2021
We all have to live with the risks posed by climate change, and learning how best to adapt will continue for decades into the future. There are no blueprints: instead we must learn by trial and improvement, write Declan Conway and Katharine Vincent, as they draw on experiences from research in Africa. Read more
Coming back from a time of illness: how finance can learn from climate change fiction
Nick Robins reviews Kim Stanley Robinson’s recent novel ‘The Ministry for the Future’.
United States starts the process of rejoining the Paris AgreementBob Ward summarises the reactions to President Biden’s actions and intentions on climate and the environment.
Financing net-zero: mobilising the money for action on the ground
The net-zero target needs to become core to the purpose of the financial system to deliver an investment-led green recovery in the UK, writes Nick Robins.
A recent think tank report that predicts significant disruption to jobs in the UK from the transition to net-zero emissions uses a potentially misleading method, argues Alex Bowen, whose own analysis shows that, with the right policies, the transition could benefit workers throughout the country.
Understanding green good specialisation in EU countries: new facts from new data
Filippo Bontadini and Francesco Vona outline their findings from constructing and analysing a new dataset identifying green production in the EU, important information for understanding how the European Green Deal can succeed in transitioning the Union to climate-neutrality by 2050.