投资者拉响警报：气候变暖可能波及能源行业

    如果把人为引起的气候变化当成必然（95%的科学家都认可这种观点。顺便说一句，这个比例比赞同吸烟致癌的科学家还多），企业会受到什么影响呢？如果你从事的行业是防止海水倒灌，上升的海平面可能是个好消息。如果你从事的是碳氢化合物（主要是石油或煤炭）寻找和开采工作，而它们又用作能源，经燃烧后再次排放到大气中，气候变化或许就是一个非常严重的问题。

    石油、天然气和能源公司面临的潜在问题来自“不可燃碳”假说。这种理论巧妙地指出，能源行业正在迅速地迈向一种两难境地。它认为，上市石油煤炭开采公司所拥有储量的碳含量已经超过了可避免危险气候变化（全球气温上升2摄氏度）的安全使用量。随着各国政府开始通过法规来防止全球气温上升，石油煤炭储量中将有很大一部分不能用来燃烧——不管怎样，这就是非政府组织Carbon Tracker的观点。如果没有那70位投资人，这本来没有什么大不了的。但是，这70位投资人代表了数百万客户的利益，包括加州公务员退休基金（CALPERS）到洛克菲勒公司（Rockefeller & Co.），再到苏格兰投资公司Scottish Widows Investment Partnership，掌握着总价值3万亿美元（18.39万亿元人民币）的资产，而且相信不可燃碳理论。上个月，他们致函世界上最大的45家石油、天然气、煤炭和公用事业公司（名单在此），呼吁后者防范“现有以及将来可能出现的温室气体减排政策给自身储量带来的风险……现在人们普遍认为企业进一步将资金用于低回报率项目并不符合投资者的最佳利益。政府的减排政策很可能进一步降低这些项目的回报率。”

    石油和煤炭目前仍然是高效能源，使用广泛且储量充足。但开采和使用碳氢化合物的成本不断上升，再加上全球很多地区的需求正在下降（原因是汽车变得更省油，可替代燃料正在得到改善和更广泛的使用）如果石油和天然气公司继续忽视市场和气候共同变化所产生的影响，就可能导致一场灾难。即使在今天，库存过多仍会造成美国能源价格下降。这个观点不是来自Carbon Tracker组织，而是克雷格•麦肯齐发表在负责人的投资者（Responsible Investor）网站上的一篇文章，他同时也是在上面谈到的那封信中签字的70位投资者之一。麦肯齐是Scottish Widows Investment Partnership投资公司可持续发展方面的负责人，后者是欧洲最大的基金管理公司之一【价值约2360亿美元（14466.8亿元人民币）】。加州教师退休基金【California State Teachers' Retirement System，管理资产1720亿美元（10543.6亿元人民币）】首席执行官杰克•艾内斯在上周四的新闻发布会上谈到了这封信，并对麦肯齐的观点表示赞同。写这封信的工作由非盈利组织Ceres负责协调，信件也由该组织寄出，Ceres管理着机构投资者组织Investor Network on Climate Risk。艾内斯说：“作为长期投资者，我们认为世界正在向着一个低碳未来迈进。在这样的未来中，这些公司继续开采的化石燃料资源实际上可能成为一种负担，而这也许会对股东所拥有的价值产生不利影响。”

    一封信也许只是一封信。现在还没有哪位投资者威胁说要撤资，这也不是他们的目的。他们不是激进分子，而是现实主义者。这封信的目的是让能源行业也面对现实。（财富中文网）

    译者：Charlie  

    If human-caused climate change is accepted as a certainty -- it is, by 95% of scientists (a higher percentage, by the way, than agree that smoking causes cancer) -- what are the ramifications for business? If you are in the keeping-back-the-sea biz, rising seas will likely be a boon. If you seek out and extract carbon from the earth (oil or coal, mostly) to be burned as energy and released into the atmosphere, climate change might be a very grave problem indeed.

    The potential problem for oil, gas, and energy companies rests on the "unburnable carbon" thesis, which elegantly articulates the rock and hard place the industry is hurtling toward. It states that the amount of carbon embedded in the reserves of the listed oil and coal mining companies is bigger than the amount we can safely emit to avoid dangerous climate change (a 2 degree C rise in temperature). As governments begin regulating to stave off the rise in temperature, much of these reserves will become unburnable -- that's the thesis, anyway, as argued by Carbon Tracker, an NGO. All this wouldn't be a huge deal if it weren't for the fact that 70 investors, representing the interests of millions of customers -- from CALPERS to Rockefeller & Co. to the Scottish Widows Investment Partnership -- worth a collective $3 trillion, believe in the unburnable carbon thesis, and last month wrote a letter to 45 of the biggest oil, gas, coal, and utility companies in the world (here's the full list), calling on them to "reserve exposure to the risks associated with current and probable future policies for reducing GHG [green house gas] emissions ... There is now a widespread view that it is not in the best interest of investors for companies to expend further capital on low-return projects," the letter continues. "Government policies to reduce GHG emissions would be likely to further reduce the returns of these projects."

    Oil and coal are still wildly efficient and abundant energy sources, but the associated costs of both pulling carbon out of the ground and burning it are way, way up. This, coupled with a decreasing demand in much of the world -- cars are more efficient, alternative fuels are getting better, and there are more of them -- is a potential recipe for disaster if oil and gas companies continue to ignore the effects of a market changing along with the climate. Even today, prices have dropped in the U.S. due to excess inventory. This argument isn't from Carbon Tracker but Craig Mackenzie, one of those 70 signers, from an article he published in Responsible Investor. Mackenzie is head of sustainability at the Scottish Widows Investment Partnership, one of Europe's largest fund managers (worth about $236 billion). Jack Ehnes, CEO of the California State Teachers' Retirement System ($172 billion under management) echoed Mackenzie's argument today in a press call about the letter, which was coordinated and sent out by Ceres, a nonprofit that directs the Investor Network on Climate Risk. "As long-term investors, we see the world moving toward a low-carbon future in which fossil fuel reserves that companies continue to develop may actually become a liability, which could take a toll on shareholder value," Ehnes said.

    A letter may be just a letter. None of the investors have threatened to pull their money out, that's not their aim. They are not activists, but realists. The purpose of the letter was to get the energy industry to be the same.