Today was my second day at the International Symposium for Climate Finance and Sustainability (ISCFS). Just like yesterday’s post, there are my reflection on the conference as a research gathering, and my top5 learnings of the day.
Doing research or defending outcomes
I have seen about 15 presentations, and so far, only one presenter has been taking notes during the question rounds. Yet, I’ve heard quite a few presenters note how grateful they were for the insightful comments… 🤔
This extends to something I observed yesterday as well, that a lot of researchers are not looking for feedback. While I probably have the tendency to do the same, it seems as if every question has to be refuted or discredited. Except for one person, I felt like no one in the sessions I attended was actively and enthusiastically looking for feedback.
This is also in line with what I talked about yesterday. Do quantitative researchers skip qualitative validation because it is too difficult or inaccessible or it is because they are scared they might find out they were (partially) wrong?
Adding to yesterday’s observation, this is another slightly disappointing one to me. I think the pursuit of the truth is not only our task as scientists, but also the joy of our occupation. Wouldn’t conferences be so much more fun when we would all put our heads together to help each other with our research goals?
More cool (and not so cool) facts
-
Following the second and third phase of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), power companies reduced their emissions by 12 and 19 % respectively.
-
The US leaving the Paris agreement has a statistically significant negative effect on US ESG scores. The scores decreased by 1.something points. The decrease is persistent, so not just the first year after the withdrawal. For firms in areas susceptible to extreme weather events this effect is more pronounced. Also, the effect is more relevant for red states. With Trump in office again, this is a worrying signal.
-
When people are in a very efficient house, they are warming their houses warmer than average. When they are in a very energy inefficient house, it is lower than average. This is called the ‘rebound effect.’ While the rebound effect is often mentioned as a critique to the labels, the pre-bound effect is stronger: so, people that have a very high expected consumption are using ‘more less’ than that people with efficient houses are using more.
-
For institutional investors, it is more interesting what a company says they are going to do with respect to sustainability than what they then actually do. When corporate governance is strong (high G-value in the ESG score), the impact of emission reduction commitments is higher (1.5%).
-
There is more finance flowing from the developing to the developed world (without china) in terms of debt repayment than there is money flowing the other way.
