As climate change awareness became more and more prominent, big business investors such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley invested in projects designed to help curb global warming, such as wind farm projects. It started to look like the thing to do, but now that a dangerous level of climate change is looking more and more inevitable, investors are now also looking to a different approach – investing in businesses that could profit as the planet continues to warm.
Water Asset Management is buying water rights and investing in water treatment companies. It currently has about $400 million under management. Land Commodities is a Switzerland-based company helping individuals purchase Australian farmland, which is at risk of becoming more scarce as temperatures rise. Last year, it apparently handled more than $80 million in investments and transactions.
Another big investment involves glaciers, more specifically the lack thereof. Melting glaciers make more land available to use and exploit in those areas, which means more money, of course. NunaMinerals, a Greenland-based mining company, spent $91.5 million searching for gold in the southern part of the region last year. Avannaa Resources has also invested over $15 million to search for copper in Greenland’s eastern territories.
One of the more interesting investments is Oxitec, a startup in England that eco-entrepreneur Jason Drew has supported. He has apparently invested about $30 million in the company, which has created a mosquito that cannot reproduce. The goal is to cut down on dengue fever, a mosquito-borne disease that is on the rise in humid regions. The offspring of this new mosquito do not survive into adulthood.
It is sad to think of these negative impacts as future money-making opportunities. However, as temperatures continue to rise and the planet changes accordingly, does it make sense to profit from the changes, or is just a race to the bottom? What are your thoughts?
Image CC licensed by Paul Arps: Australian farmland
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