Summary: Climate Change Requires Offence and Defence, just not now

Tom King addresses the Portfolio Construction Markets Summit 2022:  Regulation and policy to achieve global net zero targets will drive profound changes in the global economy in coming decades. The impacts are predictable and likely to be negative for equities markets over the medium to long term, driving long term returns below historical levels. In the long term, the beneficiaries of climate change action are likely to outperform and provide significant but sporadic opportunities but, in the short term, that is not the case – inflated expectations and poor industry economics have driven predictable underperformance that is likely to continue. In achieving longer term objectives, climate change demands both a defensive strategy to mitigate longer term risks and an offensive, tactical, approach to capitalising on opportunities.