While a given physical manifestation of climate change – a flood or storm – may not directly affect a corporate bond’s value, policy action to promote the transition towards a low-carbon economy could spark a fundamental reassessment. Take, for example, the IPCC’s estimate of a carbon budget that would likely limit global temperature rises to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. That budget amounts to between 1/5th and 1/3rd world’s proven reserves of oil, gas and coal. 24  20  See AM Best – Special Report: Asbestos Losses Fueled by Rising Number of Lung Cancer Cases (2013) www.ambest.com/ambv/bestnews/presscontent.aspx?altsrc=0&refnum=20451. 21  See Roe v Arch Coal Inc et al, Case: 4:15-cv-00910-NAB, United States District Court, Eastern District of Missouri, 9 June 2015 and Lynn v Peabody Energy Corporation et al, Case: 4:15-cv-00916-AGF, United States District Court, Eastern District of Missouri, 11 June 2015. Note that as at 1 September 2015 the defences to these claims were yet to be filed. 22  Loss and damage refers to impact of climate change not mitigated by reductions in emissions. The UNFCCC Warsaw agreement in 2013 discussed support for measures to address loss and damage. See http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2013/cop19/eng/10a01.pdf. 23  The largest UK insurers hold or manage in excess of £ of CRE and infrastructure assets, and have committed to further such investments in future. For instance, six major insurers pledged to invest £ into UK domestic infrastructure in 2013 as part of the Government’s national infrastructure plan (see http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1f74e176-5c41-11e3-b4f3-00144feabdc0.html).
With the sustained budget surplus and accumulated surplus on the Exchange Fund and Land Fund assets, the actual amount of foreign reserves in Hong Kong amounted to $ billion at the end of September, the third largest in the world. This is more than seven times Hong Kong dollar cash in circulation or over three times $ M1. 30. The currency board system has an automatic adjustment mechanism to maintain exchange rate stability. When there are outflows of funds from the Hong Kong dollar, the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) will sell US dollars to banks for Hong Kong dollar. On settlement day, the HKMA will debit the clearing accounts of the banks for the necessary amounts of Hong Kong dollars in return for the US dollar that will be credited to the New York accounts of the same banks. Since banks may have sold more Hong Kong dollars than they have in their clearing accounts with the HKMA, they can only obtain Hong Kong dollars by borrowing from other banks, by bidding up the interbank rates, or selling back the US dollars to the HKMA, that is, by reversing their short position. In fact, the banks do not hold excess Hong Kong dollars because they are generally long in foreign currency. The latest data at the end of July shows that the Hong Kong banking system is short roughly $ billion or $ billion. 31.