The headline in the Gulf News English language daily reads 'UAE tops world on per capita carbon footprint'.

For a place so reliably bathed in sunlight, the Dubai property explosion seems to have generated enough construction noise to drown out the environmental debate raging elsewhere in the world.

For the first-time visitor, the scale of the global construction superlatives - The Palm, made from reclaimed land jutting out defiantly into the Gulf, the skyscrapers built in a region where there is no shortage of space - is staggering.

The amount of environmentally 'sinfull' concrete poured over the last decade is ncalculable. Billboards lauding the benefits of solar power look like a bit of an after thought.

Climate change was just beginning to take hold as an issue for property developers when the economic downturn struck and put paid to nascent environmental ambitions.  "Green is not cheap," says Markus Giebel, chief executive of Dubai property group Deyaar Development. "Dubai was on the right track, but there's no money now. People are thinking about survival."

A growing number of Investors, including state-owned funds, are looking to invest in water to benefit from efforts to tackle climate change.

According to multi-asset manager Armstrong Investment Managers, less than 0.01 percent of water is easily accessible freshwater and global water use has tripled since 1950 — increasing faster than the world’s population.

“Demographic and climate changes will lead to two thirds of the population inhabiting areas with scarce water,” the firm says.

Armstrong likes water equipment and water treatment stocks and water utilities as these should benefit from sustainable growth opportunities.

Norway’s $350 billion sovereign wealth fund is aiming to invest 20 billion crown ($3.24 billion) investments over the next five years into water and other environmental technologies, such as carbon-capture storage and waste and pollution management.

The Norwegian fund says water was an important input or production factor for about 1,100 companies in its, whose combined market value is some $43 billion.

Is your investment green enough?

A survey by consultancy firm Mercer, carbon data provider Trucost and environmental organisation WWF finds that greenhouse gas emissions from 118 UK-based investment management firms, with 206 billion pounds in assets under management, range from 209 to 1,487 tonnes per million pounds invested.

The report showed that the funds hold investment to 1.4 percent of the market capitalisation of 2,380 companies, which accounts for approximately 134 million tonnes of carbon emissions. These equate to 22 percent of UK greenhouse gas emissions.

Nine of the 10 main contributors to the overall carbon footprint of the portfolios are in the utilities and oil and gas sectors. The research includes in-depth analysis of the increasingly negative effects that carbon costs could have on carbon-intensive utilities and oil and gas companies.

“Asset managers could dramatically reduce the carbon footprints of their funds through stock selection without the need to alter sector weightings or their overall investment strategy,” the report says.

“Asset owners could take (actions) such as incorporating climate change criteria into their investment policies, encouraging fund managers to actively manage the carbon risk in their investment portfolios, looking for new investment opportunities and supporting mandatory emission disclosure initiatives.”

More than a “nice to have,” investor sentiment is running heavily on the side of environment, social and governance (ESG) factors, according to the latest Thomson Reuters Perception Snapshot.

Feedback from 25 global buy-side investors found that 84 percent evaluate ESG criteria to some degree when making an investment decision.

The remaining 16 percent say ESG issues are not considered until a company’s ability to generate high returns is hindered by these factors.

Some of the selected comments:

“ESG only plays a role to the extent that it is an overhang on the stock. There is no moral component to investing. We are value neutral when it comes to our investment decisions, but we are not value neutral in our lives. We have a fiduciary duty to our clients, to the people who give us money to manage to maximize returns, which means that we can not be limited by our own personal morality. If I see a cigarette company that looks interesting I may invest in it even though I might not like it
personally.” - U.S. Hedge Fund Investor

“I am convinced that companies that follow the philosophy of social and economic responsibility are performing better in the long-term than those that do not.” - European Core Growth Investor

The report dovetails with Tuesday’s push by U.S. President Barack Obama to push for tougher industrial standards aimed at lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

Obama ordered the U.S. auto industry, where the hand of government is firmly in control (GM and Chrysler, but not Ford) to make more fuel-efficient cars to cut emissions and increase gas mileage.

The House of Representatives started its debate on the 946-page Democratic bill on Tuesday. Republicans are arguing the legislation would burden the economy with higher energy costs.

Does that matter, when scientists reported on Tuesday that global warming’s effects this century could be twice as extreme as estimated just six years ago?

Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists estimate the Earth’s median surface temperature could rise 9.3 degrees F (5.2 degrees C) by 2100. That’s up from the 4.3 degrees F (2.4 degrees C) estimate in 2003.

The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said seas would rise by between 18 and 59 cms (7-24 inches) this century. But it pointed to big uncertainties about ice sheets in Greenland or Antarctica — one IPCC estimate was that this ice could add up to 20 cms to sea level rise.

The recent spate of shark attacks on Australian beaches could mark a turning point in global deflation and signal a change in fortunes for some beleaguered emerging economies, if Nomura strategist Sean Darby is to be believed.

Speaking at a Nomura investors forum, Darby said a chance sighting of a shark on Sydney’s famed Bondi Beach three weeks ago made him realise that prices of grain and other soft commodities — punished of late by global recession fears — could be due for a rebound.

“I actually saw a shark on Bondi Beach and that made me wonder about the impact of La Nina and how there’s a severe drought around the world at a time when many farmers are finding it hard to access credit,” said the Hong Kong-based analyst.

The La Nina meteorological phenomenon has been blamed for bringing deep ocean creatures — such as sharks — closer to shore and also for a long-running drought that has hit farmers in Australia, China and North America.

Persistent drought could push food prices higher, potentially benefitting soft commodity-producing economies from Vietnam to Ukraine, Darby said.

“This is one area that could disrupt the picture of global deflation that bond markets have,” he said.