At UN, Financiers Talk Green, Petition SEC, Deny Subprime Links

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, February 14 -- The world of high finance tipped its hat to the environment Thursday in the UN. During an Investor Summit on Climate Risk, the heads of the pension funds of several states came out to brief the press. John Chiang, the Controller of California who claimed that his state's pension fund has only "de minimus" involvement in subprime mortgage securities, said the world must turn away from coal and find new energy sources. Moderator Mindy Lubber said that global warming risk, like the subprime mortgage market, constitutes an "uncalculated risk" which could harm communities and investors. She spoke of an 80-page petition filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission lobbying for greater environmental disclosure in annual Form 10-Ks.

            Inner City Press asked if similar pressure is being brought to bear on the Federal Reserve and, globally, on the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. Video here, from Minute 42:21. Ms. Lubber said no, that large banks are also regulated by the SEC. She praised several banks by name, banks which helped pay for the summit and had their names on banners behind the speakers. One of the speakers was Al Gore, who as he likes to say "used to be the next president of the United States" and is now, among other things, a senior advisor to Google.  As he strode by the Security Council stakeout Thursday afternoon, Gore with a wave of the hand said, "I'm not doing interviews today."

Messrs. Gore and Turner at UN in 2005, talking climate

   In terms of John Chiang's claim that California's pension fund has only "de minimus" involvement in subprime, the same can't be said of summit "underwriters" HSBC, which is a major originator of subprime loans, whose Household International unit was sued for predatory lending, like Citigroup, AIG, and Deutsche Bank, a major forecloser on subprime loans. Call it selective enlightenment.

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These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

  Because a number of Inner City Press' UN sources go out of their way to express commitment to serving the poor, and while it should be unnecessary, Inner City Press is compelled to conclude this installment in a necessarily-ongoing series by saluting the stated goals of the UN agencies and many of their staff. Keep those cards, letters and emails coming, and phone calls too, we apologize for any phone tag, but please continue trying, and keep the information flowing.

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Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

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