"The current economic downturn presents governments with an historic opportunity to 'climate proof' their economies as they upgrade infrastructure as a core response to the economic downturn," argues Mark Fulton, head of climate change investment research at Deutsche Bank, in the report, entitled 'Investing in Climate Change 2009 – Necessity and Opportunity in Turbulent Times'.
The report argues that, as a sector, climate change has 'built-in advantages' for investors, assuming governments are able to set up a functioning carbon market with some level of predictability concerning future prices of emitting CO2.
"The debate around climate change is shifting away from costs and risk towards the question of how to capitalise on exciting opportunities," states Fulton.
While the current squeeze on financing caused by the crisis in the global banking sector and money markets is a "challenge", it "can eventually be fixed and should not be used as an excuse for inaction," says Kevin Parker, Deutsche Bank's global head of asset management.
The report comes at a time when several EU member states, namely Italy, Poland and a number of other central and eastern EU countries, are raising the red flag over the likely budgetary implications of drastically reducing the carbon 'footprint' of their economies to reach the EU's stated goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 20% by 2020.
"Perhaps by our fault", the real costs of the EU's climate and energy package were not explained properly to certain countries, EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said on 17 October in Brussels, following the 15-16 Otcober EU summit, which revealed sharp differences between member states over how to realise the EU's green ambitions.
But Dimas, who is "aghast" by Italy's position, also considers the cost calculations made by some governments to be "entirely out of proportion," and believes many EU countries should use the crisis as an opportunity to innovate and to prepare for a "low carbon future".
The issue will be central to negotiations between member states as the end-of-year deadline for adopting the climate and energy package approaches, with a deal foreseen during the next EU summit, scheduled for 11-12 December. In the meantime, EU legislators are hammering out the details of the agreement in closed-door 'tripartite' talks between Commission, Parliament and member-state representatives from the Council.
