Paying It Forward

U.S. investors worth $4 trillion beg feds for climate action

For a long time now, the Bush administration has said it can't possibly take action on climate change because it will harm the economy. Now the economy is all like, "Hurt me, baby, please." Yet another business-oriented coalition -- this one including investors who manage a combined $4 trillion -- is begging the U.S. to curb greenhouse-gas emissions and create a market-based emissions trading system. A letter aimed at Bush and signed by 65 parties -- including companies like Alcoa, BP America, and Sun Microsystems, as well as big-league money managers Merrill Lynch, Allianz, and CalPERS -- called for 60 to 90 percent cuts from 1990 greenhouse-gas emissions levels by 2050. "What businesses need to move forward is a mandatory policy that finally will address the global financial risk of climate change," says Mindy Lubber, president of Boston-based Ceres, which pulled the new alliance together. "It's very hard for businesses to act without certainty."