Climate and Environment

John Gibbons: Masks are off, exposing economist Pollyannas leading the world off a climate cliff

Complacent and misinformed his FT presentation may have been, but HSBC bigwig Stuart Kirk did us all a favour by exposing the financial sector’s charade of talking ‘net zero by 2050’

Stuart Kirk, global head of responsible investing at HSBC, raised hackles by saying: ‘Who cares if Miami is under six metres of water?’

They say that everyone gets 15 minutes of fame. For Stuart Kirk, global head of responsible investing at HSBC, the British multinational bank, it came – appropriately enough – after his 15-minute presentation to a recent Financial Times conference in London.

Kirk, who previously worked as a financial journalist with the FT, stunned his audience by explaining how everything they thought they knew about climate risk was simply wrong. “Who cares if Miami is under ...