EESI’s Board Member, Dr. Rosina Bierbaum, Addresses U.N. Investor Summit on Climate Change

On January 12, EESI Board Member Dr. Rosina Bierbaum spoke at the 2012 Investor Summit on Climate Risk and Energy Solutions at the United Nations Headquarters. Dr. Bierbaum, Professor and former Dean at the School of Natural Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan, presented on "An Urgent Challenge: Economic Impacts of Climate Change and Resource Scarcity," to over 500 financial, corporate and investment leaders from around the world who attended the conference.

The biennial Investor Summit on Climate Risk is a leading forum for institutional investors worldwide to discuss the implications of climate change on capital markets. In her speech, Dr. Bierbaum was able to stress the important link between economic prosperity and the threat of climate change. She noted that the United States is not immune to the impacts of climate change; "extreme weather events in the U.S.—fires, floods, heat waves, droughts—topped $75 billion in damages last year, and business and communities suffered from power outages and loss of productivity," said Dr. Bierbaum. "Climate change will lead to more extreme events and more disruptions in supply chains that will reverberate around the globe." Dr. Bierbaum stressed that climate change could, “easily exacerbate inequality in the world, as the poorest countries will experience the greatest impacts, yet have the least financial, technical and scientific resources to cope."

The video presentation of Dr. Bierbaum’s speech can be found here . Her presentation begins at 1:05:00 into the video. Remarks of Dr. Bierbaum’s speech, with a link to download her PowerPoint presentation, may be found here .