Climate Bonds! May you live long and prosper!

From the Nov. 27, 2011, edition of the New York Times, by Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop: A Change of Heart on Investing in the Climate.

This article describes a new form of financing for climate change adaptation now underway. These "green bonds" focus on "battling climate change" -- e.g., backing mitigation and adaptation investments-- using a relatively low-risk finance instrument. They will only be successful if they get enough projects to back and enough big investors, but they've only just launched and... "[Sean Kidney, executive chairman of the Climate Bonds Initiative] estimates that $14 billion to $30 billion worth of bonds backed by investments related to climate change solutions have already been issued internationally..."

Kidney elaborates on what these bonds should cover:

"'[W]hen you’re talking about building a low-carbon economy, it should not be just about mitigation but about adaption as well. Water investments in North Africa might be considered climate adaptation bonds. Adaptation would look at infrastructure for disaster risk reduction, flood defenses or forestry conservation.'"

Find out more here:

Climate Bonds Initiative - "an investor-focused nongovernmental organization set up to promote large-scale investment in the low-carbon economy"

CBI's new Climate Bond Standards and Certification Board - launched on Nov. 24, 2011.

The Oct. 19, 2011, press release about the launch of the State Street Global Advisors (SSgA)'s High Quality Green Bond Strategy "a way to direct fixed income investments to climate solutions."

My Writings about Adaptation on the Bay Area Open Space Council's Blog, Part 4

Here's my new piece "Be Our Guest: Generation Hot" for the Bay Area Open Space blog, posted yesterday. I'm describing some of the good work being done to prepare California for climate impacts at the state and local levels.

My Writings about Adaptation on the Bay Area Open Space Council's Blog, Part 3

Here is my post "Be Our Guest: When the Levee Breaks, Mama You Got to Go"on the issue of human versus natural system adaptation, and "ecosystem-based" adaptation, written for the Bay Area Open Space blog.

Part four, coming out next week, talks about California adaptation initiatives.

I love that the blog editor linked my title "When the Levee Breaks, Mama You Got to Go" to a recording of the Led Zeppelin song. I didn't explain in my post that the song is actually relevant-- written about the Great Mississippi Flood in 1927, which was as much an engineering disaster as a natural disaster. Read more about the 1927 flood in John Barry's book on the matter, Rising Tide, written well before Katrina. I loan that book out but make sure to get it back, because I feel like it's a really important cautionary tale that I never want to forget. You can preview it on Google Books.