Will the green transition help or hinder economic expansion?

We are optimistic

A key question for investors over the first half of this century, and one for which there is a lot of diverging opinion out there, is whether the move toward net-zero carbon emissions will help or hurt economic growth.

Though the recent COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow had its disappointments, we remain hopeful that governments and businesses will avoid a negative impact from this transition by taking sufficient action sooner rather than later. A recent report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) concluded that annual investment in the energy industry will need to rise from $2trn today to $5trn by 2030 if we are to transition to a net-zero world. But you cannot simply add that extra $3trn per year to annual GDP and say ‘happy days, more growth'. That would be to ignore the question of wh...