HSBC pressured to sack banker who discredited climate crisis warnings

theguardian.com:

HSBC is under pressure to fire a senior banker in charge of responsible investing after a speech in which he described warnings about the climate crisis as “unsubstantiated” and “shrill”, made light of major flooding risks, and complained about having to spend time “looking at something that’s going to happen in 20 or 30 years”.

The bank has since been forced to denounce comments made by Stuart Kirk at a London conference on Thursday, after he gave a speech entitled “why investors need not worry about climate risk,” that appeared to discredit efforts to raise the alarm over global heating.

“I feel like it’s getting a little bit out of hand, the constantl reminder that we are doomed,” Kirk told attendees at the FT’s Moral Money conference, where he also presented slides that said: “Unsubstantiated, shrill, partisan, self-serving, apocalyptic warnings are ALWAYS wrong.”

“Human beings have been fantastic at adapting to change, adapting to climate emergencies, and we will continue to do so. Who cares if Miami is six metres underwater in 100 years? Amsterdam has been six metres underwater for ages and that’s a really nice place.”

Kirk’s comments come despite growing concerns over record-breaking heatwaves in countries such as India, which have become much more likely due to global heating, and resulted in deaths, crop losses, and water and power shortages. Other recent analyses showed devastating floods in South Africa and Europe, heatwaves in North America and the storms in south-east Africa have been supercharged by the climate crisis.

Kirk, a former editor of the Financial Times’ Lex column, also bemoaned the resource that he said HSBC was allocating to assessing climate risks.

“[In] 25 years in the finance industry, there’s