“Mark Carney is no ordinary banker. He is the banker’s banker, the superstar banker, the George Clooney of banking, possibly even the James Bond of banking,” said The Guardian when it recently interviewed Carney about his latest book Values, Building a Better World for All. The book outlines three major crises of values: COVID, climate and global finance.
This post features two videos of recent interviews with both CBC and CTV news.
We Can’t Self-Isolate from the Climate
When asked about climate change during an interview with CBC’s Rosemary Barton, Mark Carney said “we can’t self-isolate from climate change,” as we can in fighting the pandemic crisis. Scientists have warned about the dangers of pandemics and we didn’t listen. And scientists have similarly been advising us about the risks of climate change and we’re still not really listening. It’s time to listen.
Carney’s goal is to “try to channel the market in service of society and retooling the private financial sector so that every financial decision takes climate change into account and thinks about whether or not this is part of the solution to getting us to net-zero and a stable climate, or part of the problem,” he said during the interview.
March 14, 2021
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You Can’t Do Both
During a separate interview on CTV’s W5, Carney said “we can do one of two things. We can burn all those assets [fossil fuels] that we have or we can limit ourselves over time and control the increase in temperature and the impacts of climate change. You can’t do both.”
“Acting today to reduce risk tomorrow is essential. The challenge with climate is we get one shot. Climate isn’t just about nature, it is about electricity and generation…it’s also about literally rewiring and reorienting our economy.
March 13, 2021
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The video shows the growing evidence of the urgency of the climate problem, the physical effects of climate change and their impact on the financial sector, particularly the insurance sector which incurred direct costs of $2.4 billion in Canada in 2020 as a result of extreme weather.
In referring to the concept of carbon budget while addressing a room full of insurance executives at a 2015 Lloyds of London function, Carney introduced the notion that big business should start accounting for climate change costs. His point was that it costs much less to act now than to continue to pay for the impacts of extreme weather.
“How Dare You”
Mark Carney was in the room when Greta Thunberg delivered her blunt “How dare you” message during the 2019 UN Climate Summit. Carney says of Greta: “she’s a remarkable individual and one of the reasons why she’s so effective is just the relentless logic of we have a carbon budget, it is this amount, if we keep at the current pace of emissions we have a decade left on that carbon budget.”
From money man to climate man, Carney brings a new logic to the fight against climate change.
“Climate change is the ultimate betrayal of intergenerational equity. It imposes costs on future generations that the current generation has no direct incentives to fix.” — quote from Values, Building a Better World for All.
Related articles:
Viewing Climate Change As A Syndemic
Red Alert: Climate Pledges Falling ‘Far Short’ of Paris Agreement Targets
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Coming soon: Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney. Maybe he’ll kick Young Justin upstairs into the Senate and we’ll have an adult back in the PMO. I don’t expect anything to change, just so you know.
Hello Nicholas and welcome to Below2C.
I’ve just bought Mark Carney’s book, Values – Building a Better World for All. And I couldn’t agree with you more. PM Carney has a nice ring to it.
Thanks for the feedback.