Inside This Issue
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INSIDE THIS ISSUE 02 Mispricing Risk Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Dangers of a Carbon Bubble 07 Racing Ahead South Korea’s Leading Green Economy 10 From Sand to Silicon The Emergence of a New Solar Giant A B O U T W H E B WHEB is an independent investment management firm specialising in opportunities created by the global transition to more sustainable, resource efficient economies. Established in 2003, WHEB invests assets on behalf of institutional and private clients through listed equity, private equity and infrastructure investment strategies. With offices in London and Munich, WHEB’s team of more than 20 investment professionals have over 250 years of combined experience. CONTENTS 02 Mispricing Risk Raiders of the Lost Ark and the Dangers of a Carbon Bubble 07 Racing Ahead South Korea’s Leading Green Economy 10 From Sand to Silicon The Emergence of a New Solar Giant 01 WHEB QUARTERLY SUMMER ISSUE 2013 Mapping the opportunities and risks in the green economy The race is on. In recent months we’ve had the opportunity to meet, work with and visit investors from across the globe and this edition of the WHEB Quarterly profiles the enormously ambitious programmes for green growth that are emerging from two very different – and perhaps unexpected – parts of the globe. EDITORIAL Ben Goldsmith spent much of the spring visiting Middle Eastern investors and comments on the major deployment of renewable energy infrastructure that is positioning the region as an exciting source of growth in this sector (pages 10-13). Meanwhile, across the world, South Korea is also staking a claim to the mantle of ‘green growth leader’. Hyewon Kong analyses some of the most ambitious national-level targets that are aimed at de-carbonising the South Korean economy, and assesses the ramifications that these commitments are having in the investment world (pages 7-9). Meanwhile, Seb Beloe reviews the risks associated with investments in fossil fuel industries and specifically the risk that fossil fuel reserves are over-valued and may be subject to a ‘carbon bubble’ (pages 2-6). Just as the investment opportunities associated with a ‘greening’ of the global economy are likely to fall disproportionately to those regions with ambitious programmes in critical technologies and sectors, so the risks associated with fossil fuel investment will fall disproportionately to those regions with the greatest exposure to these sectors. With their heavy exposure to the FTSE – one of the most carbon heavy indices in the world, UK investors and advisors will need to understand these risks and adapt their investment strategies accordingly. We hope you enjoy the Quarterly and as always welcome your comments and feed-back. Seb Beloe Editor [email protected] 02 WHEB QUARTERLY SUMMER ISSUE 2013 By Seb Beloe, Partner, Head of Research Raiders of the Lost Ark, the 1981 fantasy adventure film starring Harrison Ford, is one of the highest-grossing films ever made and won four Academy Awards. The climax of the film comes when a group of Nazi soldiers open the Ark of the Covenant, believing it will make them invincible. But instead, a screaming cloud of Old Testament seraphim emerge, transform themselves into angels of death and annihilate anyone foolish enough to look upon them. Rarely can a prized asset have so swiftly turned itself into such a catastrophic and deadly liability. While the captains of the fossil fuel industry are unlikely to experience the ‘face-melting’ fate of Dr René Belloq, Major Arnold Ernst Toht and their cronies, the currently prized assets of coal, oil and gas reserves may prove just as illusory. 03 WHEB QUARTERLY SUMMER ISSUE 2013 Mispricing risk In recent years, global capital markets have swung The role of CO2 as a greenhouse gas is well understood violently from boom to bust. Overheated internet stocks (having been first documented in 1859iv) and, according created the dot-com bubble which burst in 2000- to a recent studyv, over 97% of nearly 12,000 peer- 2001. More recently, the financial crisis in 2007-08 was reviewed papers published in scientific journals have caused in large part by the bursting of the US housing found that climate change is caused by human activity. bubble. That economic bubbles exist is incontrovertible A previous studyvi using a slightly different methodology after the fact, but spotting them beforehand is much found that out of 13,950 papers, only 24 papers reject more difficult. climate change. You are less likely to pull ten of these studies randomly from the complete set of 13,950 As its name suggests, the Carbon Tracker Initiative studies than you are to be hit first by lightning... is focused on the issue of carbon dioxide, its role in and then by an asteroidvii. climate change and the contention that businesses focused on developing and selling fossil carbon-based While monitoring of the vast majority of physical data fuels, notably coal, oil and gas, are overvalued. (such as melting ice sheets, increasing annual land and The existence of this so-called ‘carbon bubble’ is the sea temperatures, global mean sea-level, and changing principal conclusion of their latest report, ‘Unburnable patterns of precipitation) indicates significant warmingviii, Carbon 2013’, which has been produced in partnership the main concern for investors is the economic impacts with the Grantham Research Institute on Climate of climate change. Several studies have attempted to Change and the Environmenti. put a price on the impacts of climate change, including most notably the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change in 2006ix. While these estimates are Recapping the science contentious, recent experience of the direct and indirect Fundamentally, the report is based on the premise that economic impacts of extreme weather suggests that climatic change is caused by human activity. It is worth costs associated with climate change will be significant. briefly revisiting the scientific evidence for this. In mid A 2011 study by the National Center for Atmospheric May 2013, the proportion of carbon dioxide (CO2) in Research in the US, for example, estimated that the atmosphere passed 400 parts per million (ppm)ii. extreme weather is costing US$485 billion per year, x The last time atmospheric CO2 reached this level was equivalent to 3.4% of US GDP . In the UK, the approximately three million years ago. 450ppm is widely Association of British Insurers has estimated that 4°C of regarded as the level beyond which the probability of warming could be expected to result in average annual dangerous climate change becomes uncomfortably insured flood losses increasing by 14% to £633m as highiii. At the current rate of increase, this level is likely a consequence of increased inland flooding, and this to be reached in 25 years’ time. component of insurance premiums increasing by 21%xi. ‘ In mid May 2013, the proportion of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere passed 400 parts per million. The last time atmospheric CO2 reached this level was approximately three million years ago.’ 04 WHEB QUARTERLY SUMMER ISSUE 2013 Sizing the carbon bubble of climate change remain manageable, but is little consolation when the longer-term impacts undermine 450ppm of CO is believed to equate to approximately 2 returns across other sectors and asset classes. 2°C of warming globally. If warming is to be kept to below this level, the amount of carbon dioxide that can It is also a big bet for investors to take. HSBC estimates be put into the atmosphere between now and 2050 that the market capitalisation of some European oil and must be limited to approximately 900 gigatonnes of CO2 gas companies could be reduced by as much as 16% (GTCO2). The problem is that total proven reserves of (with Statoil the most at risk) if climate change policies fossil carbon energy resources represent about 2,860 are implementedxiv, and UK mining stocks could lose up xv GTCO2 or slightly more than three times what can be to 15% of their value . safely used during that period. Most of these reserves are owned by governments and could be left in the Of course, most investors won’t hold large active positions in single stocks, but, for certain markets, ground, but 762 GTCO2 are owned by listed companies that are valued by investors on the basis that these the risks associated with exposure to carbon assets are significant. Citi estimates that the Australian index resources will be exploited, with a further 1,541 GTCO2 listed in potential reserves. (the ASX200) is over 14% related to fossil fuelsxvi. The FTSE100 is the third most carbon-intense index If listed fossil fuel companies have a pro rata portion globally (behind Moscow and Athens). Average unit of the 900 GTCO carbon ‘budget’, this would amount 2 holders of a FTSE100 tracker fund have approximately to 125-275 GTCO or approximately 20-40% of the 2 18% of their holdings in oil and gas companies and a xii reserves already booked by these companies . further 11% in mining, of which a significant portion In other words, if CO levels are to be kept at levels 2 is coal. that the scientific community considers to be safe, then between 60%-80% of the existing booked Fossil fuel carbon budget reserves of listed fossil fuel companies should not Maximum temperature rise (˚C) 2013-2049 (GtCO2) be exploited during that period. 1.5 ˚C - 2.0 ˚C 900 Implications for investors 2.5 ˚C 1125 3.0 ˚C 1275 How the world’s governments are likely to respond is uncertain. Currently it seems that fossil fuel companies and their financial backers are ‘betting that government climate policies will fail [and that] they will be able to TOTAL PROVEN RESERVES burn all their reserves, including new ones, after all’ OF FOSSIL FUELS UNBURNABLE (as The Economist put itxiii).