News

• Chicago drags Goldman, BoA into BP boycott

  01 September 2007

  The City of Chicago may boycott BP over emissions from a nearby refinery, and is to cut Goldman Sachs and Bank of America out of lucrative bond underwriting business, as they have officers on the oil major's board.

• Latest Senate climate bills look overseas

  01 September 2007

  The two latest Senate bills aiming to cap US greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions have opened a new front in the climate debate – targeting US trading partners that fail to cut carbon.

• Climate change resolutions up

  01 September 2007

  Investors filed a record 43 climate-related resolutions with US companies during the 2007 proxy season, according to Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmental groups that helped co-ordinate the shareholder filings.

• Aussie exchange buys into water, plans clean-tech market

  01 September 2007

  An Australian stock exchange specialising in small, medium and regional businesses has acquired Australia's largest independent water market operator for A$10.75 million (US$8.8 million) and will follow this next month with the launch of a sustainability and clean-tech investment market.

• Environmental markets seen dodging financial crisis

  01 September 2007

  Capital for financing clean technologies and to trade in environmental markets could get harder to find, some financiers warn, as the effects of losses in the US mortgage markets make themselves felt more widely. But most believe that financing renewable energy is likely to remain attractive, and some argue that environmental markets will offer investors returns that are uncorrelated with equity and debt markets.

• More carbon cuts from shareholders, consumers than emissions trading?

  01 September 2007

  Pressure from consumers and shareholders to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases is having more of an impact on many large companies than the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), according to some emissions specialists.

• Renewable investment 'to reach $750bn by 2016'

  01 September 2007

  World-wide investment in renewable energy could pass the $750 billion mark by 2016, Ernst & Young predicts.

• Italian business offered hot weather bet

  01 September 2007

  Merrill Lynch has launched a temperature-linked investment product that will allow farmers and retailers in Italy to mitigate against the impacts of hot weather on crop yields or sales.

• Sakhalin finances under spotlight

  01 September 2007

  Two campaign groups have filed for a judicial review of the UK export credit agency's decision to underwrite $1 billion of contracts for the controversial Sakhalin II oil and gas project before the environmental impact assessment of the project was completed.

• Hurricane Dean to cost insurers up to $3 billion

  01 September 2007

  Insured losses from Hurricane Dean are likely to be between $1.5 billion and $3 billion, according to extreme risk modeller Eqecat, hitting the insurance sector with its second big bill this summer.