Opinion
Senate Republicans are the primary carbon pricing obstacle but are shifting rapidly.
“Well, it's Republicans in the Senate, let's be perfectly honest. I think that's changing quickly, let's just put it there.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Bob Litterman predicts the global economy faces decades of low oil prices.
“I think we're in for, you know, decades of low oil prices.”
Disclosure
Bob Litterman's climate risk models price carbon above $100 per ton.
“What I found when I looked into this was that the number that came out of the model, it was hard to get it down below, say, a hundred dollars a ton.”
Insight
Delaying global carbon pricing by three years adds 0.1°C to peak warming.
“For every three years that we delay pricing emissions, the maximum temperature, the best case, or let's say the optimal solution is another 10th of a degree onto that expected maximum temperature.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Global warming will exceed 2°C without aggressive carbon pricing within a decade.
“Bottom line is that we can expect that temperature to get above two degrees if we don't act very soon in the next, say, decade.”
Opinion
The low-carbon transition will occur much faster than markets currently expect.
“Really my argument is that the transition to a low carbon economy is going to be faster than what's built into market expectations.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Society will likely need to extract most current CO₂ emissions via geoengineering.
“We're probably going to have to pull most of the CO₂ that we're putting into the atmosphere here today back out.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Bob Litterman predicts climate policy action will be an abrupt phase change.
“And to me, the big opportunity here now is the recognition that the response is not going to be a slow increase in concern about an action on climate. We haven't taken appropriate action yet, and we're going to have to. And when that happens, it's going to be …”
Insight
Economic models must match market discount rates rather than picking arbitrarily.
“You don't get to pick a discount rate. You have to match it to the discount rates you see in the market.”
Insight
Climate policy must prepare for the worst-case scenario of planetary fragility.
“So we don't know what the fragility of the planet is right now. It could be very robust. It could be very fragile. Today, we have to plan our policy in a way that prepares us for, you know, the worst case, which is a very fragile environment.”
What-if
Pricing carbon in 2000 would have cheaply capped warming near 1°C.
“Had we addressed this 20 years ago, wouldn't have been that costly. We could have had a very smooth transition, and the maximum temperature would be somewhere around where we are today. Which is to say, not great, but not catastrophic.”
Opinion
Bob Litterman views the US as the main obstacle to climate coordination.
“I think the US is by far the stumbling block in terms of global coordination today. Europe and China And the rest of the world, frankly, are ready to move and are waiting for the US.”
Insight
Green investment taxonomies and subsidies do not guarantee actual emissions reductions.
“In Europe, for instance, they have this taxonomy. They define certain types of investments as green, others as brown, and then they create, for instance, tax incentives, other types of incentives. For investors to invest in green investments. Well, guess what …”
Opinion
Developing nations need direct wealth transfers rather than subsidies for pollution.
“Helping development is fine, and we should do that in terms of, as I say, you know, transfers of wealth, transfers of knowledge. Transfers of food or housing or whatever, but not by subsidizing pollution. That's not the right way to help those countries.”
Insight
Bob Litterman links financial risk management directly to pricing climate risk.
“What I found is that there are a lot of parallels between the way we think about and manage financial risk and the way we should be thinking about managing climate risk.”
Disclosure
Goldman Sachs hired Bob Litterman to monetize risk rather than reduce it.
“And when they asked me to be head of risk management, it wasn't because Goldman Sachs wanted to reduce its risk. They wanted to make more money from the risks that they were taking. And if we were taking risks that we weren't getting paid for, we should identi…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
The World Wildlife Fund's stranded asset total return swap gained over 130%.
“It's up over a 130% now since we put it on in seven years ago.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
The fossil fuel sector's historical market underperformance is accelerating.
“Fossil fuel sector has dramatically underperformed the market For a long time now, and it seems to be accelerating.”
