Economic Impact

Climate Damage Costs

Retreat From Climate Pledges Deemed 'a Lily-Livered Effort to Avoid Criticism’

Big Banks Bow Out

Economic impact-plus and minus

Tackling Climate Crisis Will Boost Economic Growth, While Inaction Could Cause ‘Permanent Recession,’ Researchers Say

TED (15 m) Economic case for protecting the Planet

Quantifying the Impact of Climate Change on Human Health

Climate change impacts health directly through disease and mental health issues, disproportionately affecting vulnerable communitiesClimate change intensifies global health risks, causing higher morbidity and mortalityHealthcare executives and policy- makers need to focus on prevention, recovery and innovation.Climate change is a health emergency. This report’s projections of morbidity and mortality from climate-intensified natural disasters, cumulatively close to 15 million deaths, more than two billion healthy life years lost, and $12.5 trillion in economic losses by 2050 bring into focus the dimensions of the crisis. The risk from global warming threatens to destabilize both the healthcare ecosystems and the planet.

10 ways businesses can be more climate resilient

VIDEO: 3 climate disasters most threatening to global health (1:30 m)

Nature and Climate 2025

As the impacts of climate change intensify, a growing number of employers are exploring ways to integrate skills in resiliency and adaptability into their workforces. From deploying renewable energy and modernizing the electric grid to designing resilient infrastructure and supporting community adaptation, workers across sectors will be central to building a climate-resilient future.

World Economic Forum - Dec 11, 2024

Business on the Edge: Building Industry Resilience to Climate Hazards Download PDF

The business and societal case for investing in resilience and adaptation is increasingly clear. Earth systems—such as ice sheets, ocean currents, and permafrost—are interconnected processes that regulate the planet’s climate, sustain ecosystems, and provide essential services like carbon storage, water filtration, and temperature stabilization. These systems are the foundation of societal and economic stability, enabling communities to thrive. However, they are nearing irreversible tipping points, putting both natural and human systems at significant risk. The potential collapse of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, for instance, could trigger up to 10 meters of sea-level rise, displacing millions and exacerbating food insecurity for over 500 million people.

5 Key Takeaways from the (NZ) Climate Change and Business Conference 2024

This week (Sept 9-13, 2024), over 600 sustainability professionals and business leaders gathered in Auckland and online for the Climate Change and Business Conference 2024.

Russell McVeagh sponsored the event, and three of our Environmental, Social and Governance experts were in attendance. In this update, our team shares some of their main takeaways from the conference and, in particular, discussions around the challenges businesses face in Aotearoa as the transition towards a low-emissions, climate-resilient future continues.

Effective collaboration between businesses and government is crucial

Many of the sessions at the conference emphasised the need for businesses and government to stand "shoulder to shoulder" in developing and implementing the solutions for New Zealand's transition to a low-emissions, climate-resilient future. On the Government-business relationship, the Minister for Climate Change, Hon Simon Watts, emphasised the Government's willingness to work with business and respond to feedback on the draft second emissions reduction plan due to be finalised by the end of this year, noting the role of the technology sector as an enabler to the transition as one area where the plan would likely change in response to feedback. Key remaining issues relating to collaboration include how the Government should best support businesses to deliver gross emissions reductions (e.g. through direct financial assistance or other mechanisms), and how to enable consistent access to accurate climate data between Government, the private sector and other stakeholders.

In addition to collaboration between business and government, the need for consensus-building across the political divide was a key theme of the business community's messaging to political leaders at the conference. Business leadersnoted that making investment and other business decisions about a long-term, chronic problem requires certainty in government policy across election cycles.

Coordinated progress on climate change adaptation is required

This year's conference included a greater focus on climate change adaptation than in prior years, with several sessions dedicated to exploring how New Zealand can become more resilient to the impacts of climate change. A key theme of those sessions was a strong consensus that a coordinated approach to adaptation is crucial, ensuring that matters such as "new buildings in the right places" is coordinated with proactive and reactive approaches to managed retreat.

One key development in this space that many organisations will be watching is the progress of the adaptation inquiry currently being undertaken by the Finance and Expenditure Select Committee, launched in May of this year. In a panel session with three members of that Committee, it was made clear that the report that emerges will only be the beginning of a raft of changes required to implement an effective adaptation approach in New Zealand. Vexed questions such as "how will the costs of adaptation be shared between stakeholders?" are unlikely to be resolved by the report itself, and much will depend on the approach that the Government ultimately adopts following delivery of the report.

New Zealand's emissions on the world stage

New Zealand's role in the international context was front and centre at this year's conference, with broad recognition that it is in New Zealand's self-interest as an exporting nation to take action on climate change given the international regulatory and commercial context. For example, developments like the European "Green Deal" (which includes extensive sustainability reporting obligations amongst other regulatory requirements) are driving large international customers to demand more from their key suppliers on climate change.

The Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between New Zealand and the European Union, which entered into force on 1 May 2024 and contains a number of provisions relating to climate change and the environment, was highlighted as setting a new "gold standard" for environmental protections in bilateral trade agreements. This is just one example of how the international context is evolving, with risks to New Zealand's "clean and green" reputation if it is perceived internationally as "watering down" its response or otherwise failing to take adequate action on climate change.

Mobilising finance for the transition

A further key theme of the conference was mobilising finance for the transition, in particular in the context of New Zealand's energy and other infrastructure. One particularly interesting panel discussion on global markets highlighted that the investment in energy generation and transmission infrastructure required in New Zealand presents opportunities for offshore investment, however there is a problem of scale as many projects will be too small to attract large overseas. Accordingly, there is scope for collaboration and creativity in aggregating investment opportunities to attract the attention of the global market.

Greenwashing remains front of mind

It is clear that greenwashing remains a key area of concern for many organisations, particularly in relation to setting and communicating climate-related targets. This can be a tricky area for organisations to navigate, with the need to balance stakeholder desire for ambitious targets that align with the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees with the need to ensure that organisations are communicating their targets in a way that is not misleading. Under the mandatory climate-related disclosures regime which came into effect last year, many large New Zealand businesses are required to disclose the targets they use to manage climate-related risks and opportunities, and this has sharpened focus in this area.

While setting a target does not require an organisation to be 100% certain that the target will be achieved, organisations should ensure that their targets are based on reasonable assumptions and a genuine intention to try to meet them, to avoid allegations of greenwashing being made.

COMMENTVolume 8, Issue 12E977-E978December 2024Open AccessDownload Full Issue

No silver bullets, no shortcuts: confronting the commercial determinants of the climate crisis

Benjamin Wooda b.wood@deakin.edu.au ∙ Penelope Milsomb ∙ Sharon Frielc

Affiliations & NotesArticle Info

Last year the 28th UN Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP28) placed health firmly on the global climate change agenda. Many are hoping that the upcoming COP29 in Azerbaijan will build on this momentum. However, although important, there can be little doubt that centring human health in climate change negotiations alone will be insufficient to drive the action needed to prevent catastrophic climate and ecological breakdown. Ultimately, efforts to protect the health of current and future generations, and of the natural ecosystems upon which life depends, must focus on confronting the power of the fossil fuel industry and transforming the dominant political–economic system within which it is embedded.1 A commercial determinants of health lens—highlighting the practices of commercial entities and the wider system which both enables and constrains them—can provide important insights.2

For decades, the fossil fuel industry has leveraged its lobbying resources, privileged access to policy makers, and unique structural importance in economies to prevent government action on critical climate and environment-related issues.3 Its longstanding public relations campaign has cast doubt on the causes and impacts of climate breakdown, downplayed the feasibility and impact of renewable energy, and exaggerated the importance of fossil fuels in securing energy affordability and security.4Concurrently, the fossil fuel industry has sought to portray itself as a legitimate and integral player in the global renewable energy transition.4

The fossil fuel industry, of course, does not operate in a vacuum. Broadly speaking, its largely unbridled power is embedded within a wider so-called consumptogenic system of institutions, actors, policies, and norms that incentivises and sustains the exploitation of natural resources, along with the excessive consumption of fossil fuel-reliant goods and services, regardless of the environmental, social, and health costs.1 This system is both profoundly shaped by, and further entrenches, existing power imbalances that largely favour the accumulation of fossil fuel-tainted profits for a wealthy elite. The Investor State Dispute Settlement mechanism, initially established in the 1960s to protect the assets of colonisers from newly independent states, and which now readily allows fossil fuel corporations and investors to sue governments for taking action on climate change, provides an example of such dynamics.5 The role of militarism and imperialism in propagating the consumptogenic system should also not be overlooked. In recent years, military spending on supporting global fossil fuel supplies has surged to many billions of US dollars.6 Militaries are also the world's largest fossil fuel consumers; the US Military's carbon footprint alone is larger than that of entire industrialised countries like Portugal and Denmark.7

Nevertheless, the consumptogenic system is socially constructed and dynamic, and can therefore be disrupted and transformed to realise multiple interconnected planetary health equity goals. A commercial determinants of health lens helps to illuminate the wide range of actions that can make this a reality. Among many possibilities, key examples include eliminating all forms of fuel subsidies and shifting public investments into sustainable economic pathways; leveraging monetary policy to place restrictions on private investments into the fossil fuel industry and other problem sectors (eg, industrial agriculture); scaling public ownership in the renewable energy sector; and subjecting the fossil fuel industry to its own version of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control to severely restrict its interaction with decision makers in national policy spaces and relevant international fora (eg, COPs).

Measures to ensure a fair energy transition within and between countries must also be taken. This is especially important for many communities in low-income and middle-income countries least responsible for, yet disproportionately burdened by, the impacts of the climate and ecological breakdown. To this end, key actions include securing debt justice and fair climate financing for loss and damages and for transitioning to renewable energy, and establishing mechanisms to ensure communities and governments retain sovereignty over their natural resources and can hold powerful private actors to account.

The main obstacles to securing the aforementioned structural changes are political, not technical. Regardless of COP29's outcomes, the health community must prioritise increasing its support for broader efforts seeking to delegitimise the ideas and narratives that portray health-enabling change as political dead ends. There is also an important role to play in advancing alternatives centred on sustainability and justice,8 such as elevating indigenous worldviews to broaden the collective understanding of health,9 and pushing for economic models that deliver shared wellbeing.10 For effective and just change to occur, disciplinary and geographical boundaries will need to be transcended, and the meaningful participation of marginalised communities in key decision-making fora secured. Some might consider that such actions fall outside the traditional public health remit, and that the health community should only focus on decarbonising the health system. However, to avoid catastrophic planetary health equity outcomes, there are no silver bullets nor shortcuts.

Competing Interests

SF received a grant to their university from Australian Research Council to support the present work. All other authors declare no competing interests.