Finance and Climate Change: A Progressive Green Finance Strategy for the UK

The rapid decarbonization of the UK economy requires a wider range of policies, from fiscal interventions to a green industrial strategy, a green plan for a National Investment Bank and environmental regulations that will restrict carbon-intensive consumption. These policies need to be accompanied by a rapid transformation of the UK financial system. The UK’s official Green Finance Strategy, published by the Conservative government in July 2019, does not go far enough. It offers a market-led, too much carrot, too little stick, deregulated decarbonisation approach. Yet an ambitious transition to low-carbon will not take place via the market because of a series of market failures that include incompatible time horizons between private finance and climate crisis, incomplete capital markets, corporate market power, and subjective private classifications of green assets. To climate-align private finance, we offer a set of recommendations that aim to (i) establish a robust institutional framework, (ii) green Bank of England/commercial banking and (iii) green shadowbanking/market-based finance (see Figure 1). Recommendation I: Develop a Green Public Taxonomy. An ambitious green finance agenda needs a clear description of what counts as green and what does not. The increasingly popular Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) private sector approaches suffer from significant shortcomings that open the door to greenwashing. Instead, we suggest a public taxonomy, developed by a UK Technical Expert Group and building on the European Commission’s taxonomy, that identifies economic activities with different degrees of greenness and brownness. The analysis of climate-related financial risks and climate stress-tests should continue in parallel with the development of the Taxonomy. Recommendation II: Make firms disclose the climate impact and risks of their activities. There are two types of information that should be disclosed. First, the degree of greenness and brownness of the financial assets held by financial and non financial corporations should be disclosed based on the Green Public Taxonomy. Second, it is important that disclosure extends to the transition and physical climate risks facing institutions. These risks could be disclosed based on methodologies that are being developed by TCFD and NGFS. Recommendation III: Set up the Green Finance TaskForce (GFAT). Working towards a path of net-zero emissions by 2030 is a challenging task. Green finance policies should be coordinated with other climate policies (green fiscal, industrial) such that the reduction of emissions will be maximised and the economic disruptions caused by decarbonisation will be minimal. The Green Finance Task Force will closely monitor progress in greening private finance, take actions to tackle transition risks and respond dynamically to obstacles that stand in the way of reorienting private finance towards green activities

Predictors of vitamin D status and its association with parathyroid hormone in young New Zealand children.

BACKGROUND: Despite increased awareness of the adverse health effects of low vitamin D status, few studies have evaluated 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] status in young children. OBJECTIVES: We aimed to assess vitamin D status on the basis of 25(OH)D and its relation with parathyroid hormone (PTH) and to identify possible predictors of 25(OH)D status in young children living in a country with minimal vitamin D fortification. DESIGN: Serum 25(OH)D and PTH concentrations were measured in a cross-sectional sample of children aged 12-22 mo [n = 193 for 25(OH)D, n = 144 for PTH] living in Dunedin, New Zealand (latitude: 45 degrees S). Anthropometric, dietary, and sociodemographic data were collected. RESULTS: The majority of children sampled in the summer (94%; 47 of 50) had 25(OH)D >50 nmol/L; however, nearly 80% of children sampled in the winter (43 of 55) had serum concentrations 60-65 nmol/L, a plateau in PTH was evident. CONCLUSIONS: Seasonal variation in 25(OH)D concentration implies that postsummer vitamin D stores were insufficient to maintain status >50 nmol/L year-round. Examination of the predictors of 25(OH)D in our model shows few modifiable risk factors, and thus effective dietary strategies may be required if future research determines that children with 25(OH)D concentrations <50 nmol/L are at significant health risk. This trial was registered at www.actr.org.au as ACTRN12605000487617

The High Prevalence of Vitamin D Insufficiency across Australian Populations Is Only Partly Explained by Season and Latitude

Background Inadequate sun exposure and dietary vitamin D intake can result in vitamin D insufficiency. However, limited data are available on actual vitamin D status and predictors in healthy individuals in different regions and by season.Methods We compared vitamin D status [25-hydroxyvitamin D; 25(OH)D] in people &lt; 60 years of age using data from cross-sectional studies of three regions across Australia: southeast Queensland (27&deg;S; 167 females and 211 males), Geelong region (38&deg;S; 561 females), and Tasmania (43&deg;S; 432 females and 298 males).Results The prevalence of vitamin D insufficiency (&le; 50 nmol/L) in women in winter/spring was 40.5% in southeast Queensland, 37.4% in the Geelong region, and 67.3% in Tasmania. Season, simulated maximum daily duration of vitamin D synthesis, and vitamin D effective daily dose each explained around 14% of the variation in 25(OH)D. Although latitude explained only 3.9% of the variation, a decrease in average 25(OH)D of 1.0 (95% confidence interval, 0.7&ndash;1.3) nmol/L for every degree increase in latitude may be clinically relevant. In some months, we found a high insufficiency or even deficiency when sun exposure protection would be recommended on the basis of the simulated ultraviolet index.Conclusion Vitamin D insufficiency is common over a wide latitude range in Australia. Season appears to be more important than latitude, but both accounted for less than one-fifth of the variation in serum 25(OH)D levels, highlighting the importance of behavioral factors. Current sun exposure guidelines do not seem to fully prevent vitamin D insufficiency, and consideration should be given to their modification or to pursuing other means to achieve vitamin D adequacy.<br /

The Wall Street Consensus in pandemic times: what does it mean for climate-aligned development?

The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the dominance of what Daniela Gabor calls the Wall Street Consensus (WSC) as the hegemonic approach to sustainable development. Public commitments to ‘green recoveries’ and climate resilience, growing fiscal deficits in the Global South, and new central bank emergency liquidity measures have created more space for WSC policies. We examine the key WSC climate policy tools – climate infrastructure as an asset class, climate rescuer of last resort, disclosure of climate-related financial risks and carbon pricing – and argue that these will increase financial vulnerability in the Global South while doing little to achieve climate-aligned development

Alcohol, drug, and sexual risk behavior correlates of recent transactional sex among female black South African drug users

INTRODUCTION: Transactional sex among black South African women has become a mode of economic survival putting them at higher risk for HIV and other infectious disease. METHODS: In order to inform HIV interventions, drug and sexual risk behavior correlates of recent transactional sex among a descriptive epidemiological, cross-sectional sample of 189, black, South African women in Pretoria were examined using log binomial regression. RESULTS: Prevalence of HIV seropositivity was extremely high among non-transactional sex workers (47.1%) and transactional sex workers (54.6%), albeit not significantly different. Adjusted regression results indicated that the probability of transactional sex was greater for drug using women who tested positive for cocaine use (Adjusted Prevalence Ratio (APR)=1.3, 95% CI=1.1, 1.5) and knew of anyone who died of AIDS (APR =1.5, 95% CI 1.1, 2.1). The probability of transactional sex was lower for female drug users who reported greater education (APR =0.6, 95% CI= 0.4, 0.8), condom use in their first sexual encounter (APR =0.7, 95% CI=0.6, 1.0) or reported a recent steady sexual partnership (APR =0.8, 95% CI=0.7, 0.9). CONCLUSIONS: Drug use-related interventions for female transactional sex workers may need to focus on methods for the reduction of not only drug use, especially cocaine use, but also the reduction of sexual risk behaviors.Funding for this study was provided by NIDA’s Southern Africa Initiative as a supplement to a parent study conducted in the US (R01DA014498) and from the Drug Dependence Epidemiology Training Grant (T32DA007292). The authors wish to thank Dr. Leah Floyd for her work on this study