Readers of this blog will be familiar with Mark Carney, one time chair of the Bank of England, who has consistently warned about the dire financial impacts of climate change on insurance and the financial sector.
Amid a generational crisis in Canada’s relationship with the United States, the Liberal Party of Canada on Sunday chose an unelected technocrat with deep experience in financial markets to replace Justin Trudeau as party leader and the country’s prime minister, and to take on President Trump.
Mark Carney, 59, who steered the Bank of Canada through the 2008 global financial crisis and the Bank of England through Brexit, but who has never been elected to office, won a leadership race on Sunday against his friend and former finance minister, Chrystia Freeland.
He won a stunning 85.9 percent of the votes cast by Liberal Party members. More than 150,000 people voted, according to the party’s leaders.
“America is not Canada. And Canada never, ever, will be part of America in any way, shape or form,” Mr. Carney said in his acceptance speech on Sunday evening to an electric crowd of party faithful, directly addressing Mr. Trump’s constant threat that he wants to make Canada the 51st state. “We didn’t ask for this fight, but Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves.’’
Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England, declared that the warming climate presented major risks for the global economy and global financial stability, and that businesses and regulators needed to move more quickly to try to contain the potential economic damage even though it may seem uncertain and far off.
His warning, delivered in a 4,400-word speech with ample footnotes on Tuesday, is the latest example of how climate change has moved beyond theoretical scientific debates to the start of practical planning for safeguarding the economy and business.
“We don’t need an army of actuaries to tell us that the catastrophic impacts of climate change will be felt beyond the traditional horizons of most actors — imposing a cost on future generations that the current generation has no direct incentive to fix,” he said. “In other words, once climate change becomes a defining issue for financial stability, it may already be too late.”
–Consider that a housing bubble largely concentrated in a handful of Sun Belt American states, Spain and Ireland set in motion events that eight years ago caused a financial crisis from which the world economy has still not fully healed. It’s easy to imagine how the effects of a shifting climate could similarly ripple through both the financial system and the real economy in ways that are impossible to predict with any precision today.
Global insurers are already facing a higher frequency of large, expensive disasters from extreme weather, and in the future could face untold liabilities as the losers from a warming planet try to extract compensation from the (insured) companies that profited from fossil fuel production. It was no coincidence that Mr. Carney delivered his speech at the three-century-old insurer Lloyd’s of London.
Those energy extraction industries, which include many of the planet’s biggest companies, could one day face existential risk. If global governments get more aggressive about restricting carbon emissions, it could mean that billions of investment in oil and gas extraction will be rendered useless and undermine both some of the most widely held investments and the government finances of oil-producing regions.
“the Liberal Party of Canada…chose an unelected technocrat”
That reads like an unwarranted comparison with Elon Musk.
(I’m always skeptical of motives behind NYT reporting these days.)
Carney says “Canada is not America”, but it would be the EXACT wrong choice if Democrats here in the States selected a banker who had never been elected to any office before for their Presidential candidate to face a Republican Party that has gone populist.
A main problem with Democrats regaining power here is that they’ve become strongly identified with the established power centers (the coasts and cities) and wealthy, college educated white collar types. The Democrats used to stand for the working class, and it can be argued they still do, but the perception in the middle parts of America has flipped. They see guys like bankers as the enemy. If Carney had been nominated here, it would have been a giant middle finger to those people – and they were the ones who decided this last election.
I’d guess that’s what the NYT writer was thinking – like, are the liberals in Canada crazy? Dumb? Because a Carney pick here would be a really poor decision.
But here’s hoping things ARE different in Canada, and none of the above matters there.
A Canadian perspective here. Unfortunately, Mark Carney is firmly rooted in the elite class and has no understanding of the hardships the average Canadian is facing. He has expressed no interest in addressing the growing wealth inequality in Canada and, in fact, has proposed policy that will only make matters worse. He is an old school economist who believes in market efficiency. Over the past 40 years all this has done is accumulate more and more wealth in the hands of the ultra-rich. There are solutions. Unfortunately, Mark Carney is not aware of them.
In addition, Mr. Carney is no climate change advocate. He has stated clearly that he plans to accelerate pipeline projects which is the last thing we need, both from a climate and economic point of view.