Essay by Eric Worrall
Time author Justin Worland is distressed that companies don’t understand alarmist predictions of future climate harms.
OCT 4, 2025 5:00 AM AET
When Will Companies Grasp the Cost of Climate Change?
by Justin Worland
SENIOR CORRESPONDENTFor as long as I can remember, adaptation and resilience have been ugly ducklings of sorts in the broader climate conversation. To many climate advocates, focusing too much on measures to prepare society for the physical costs of climate change risked distracting from efforts to cut emissions. For businesses, assessing the actual costs of climate change was too difficult to measure and the damages seemed too far out.
…
“When we’re talking to our investment team, we sort of assume physical climate risk is already mispriced,” said Jamie Franco, the head of cross-asset research and sustainable investment at TCW Group, an asset manager, on a Climate Week panel held by MSCI. “It’s already in your portfolio. You’re sort of flying blind. You have to combine some of the data you have, which is imperfect, and think about it from the asset that you’re investing in.”
For companies, there’s no easy fix. First, addressing the issue requires future-oriented data and modeling that can clearly show where the risk lies. Even more difficult is gathering the institutional will to use a company’s limited capital on resilience efforts that pay off in future cost savings rather than the more immediate returns of big financial growth-oriented investments. But pressure to do so will come soon enough. As the costs continue to stack up, companies will feel increasing pressure from investors and other stakeholders to take the resilience challenge seriously. Companies that prepare ahead of time will be rewarded; those that don’t risk being forced to change only once the crisis gets to a breaking point.
…
Read more: https://time.com/7323198/companies-climate-cost-risk-adaptation/
If companies haven’t noticed the problem, chances are the problem, if any, is so small it is not even registering in the deep analysis large companies continuously perform to monitor the state of their business.
Anyone who has seen the churn on supermarket shelves has witnessed first hand the kind of tight control large companies maintain over costs and profits. Every penny is tracked and accounted for. Every square inch of shelving has to earn its keep. Slow moving or unprofitable product lines are ruthlessly culled – unless they are deemed important lures to bring customers into the shop, in which case they are put up the back, so customers can be tempted by all the useless high profit unhealthy foods supermarkets want you to purchase, while trekking to the back of the store to find the items customers actually need.
If climate change ever negatively impacts profits, large companies will detect it immediately, and respond with precisely calibrated adaptive measures. If they are not making such adjustments, then climate change is not hurting their businesses.
What about the issue of “mispriced risk”? Some climate modellers predict climate change will deliver superstorms, low probability high impact events which would be difficult to correctly price based on historical observations, if they were to suddenly surge in significance.
But to correctly price such risk, you need climate models which work.
Current climate models are unphysical, therefore they are predictively useless. A model which fails to predict critical features of the Earth’s climate cannot be relied upon to make sound predictions about future climate change.
Using current climate models to predict future risk is on a par with using an ouija board. Taking the output of an unphysical model seriously is on a par with consulting a psychic for business advice.
Companies should take resilience seriously. In today’s uncertain world, supply chains could be cut at any moment, and history tells us our world is capable of creating megadroughts and horrific fire and storm events even without climate model voodoo. But to base future decisions on untrustworthy models, climate models or otherwise, is to incur a significant risk of corporate resource misallocation, which in today’s competitive world could be more damaging than suffering the occasional outage because of unexpected storms.
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Thus far, the vast majority of the
hazard from “climate change” are NetZero/Green New Deal programs interfering with electrical and energy costs and availability. Dealing with the politics of sillyass “solutions” is a much larger risk than some mild warming.
Dealing with the electricity price increases resulting from the sillyass solutions is a real problem, not just a risk.
So far the climate change in north western Europe has been an unparalleled blassing. As my Island horse guide put it: enjoy it while it lasts. In 1860 ies the Swiss glaciers threatended to overrun villages (Saas Fee e.g.) crops were poor for lacking sun and heat and now everything has changed for the better and people are complaining about the blessing of an inproved climate.
The Little Ice Age of 19th century was responsible for the miserable weather of that era.
Justin Worland CV watch: BA, History.
Probably not very good at history, either, or he would know what weather is.
Previous remarks about the value of most Liberal Arts ed are illustrated here. But I would expect, indeed, demand that a History major know the History of things, and how to research.
Yup. Proponents of “runaway climate change” are just
NATURAL HISTORY DENIERS.
I would also worry about investing where Jamie Franco works.
When will Time notice there is absolutely no actual evidence from the geological record that CO2 is the ‘control knob’ of the Earth’s climate system?
They will notice when not noticing stops being so lucrative.
When will time notice the cost of woke policies as happened to Miller Lite and Cracker Barrel etc.
These are the real costs, and just as net zero caused for no reason.
Mostly Bud Light.
When EPA Administer Lee Zeldin rescinds the 2009 CO2 Endangerment Finding. This could happen soon.
Then let the lawsuits begin.
“Current climate models are unphysical, therefore they are predictively useless. A model which fails to predict critical features of the Earth’s climate cannot be relied upon to make sound predictions about future climate change.
Using current climate models to predict future risk is on a par with using an ouija board. Taking the output of an unphysical model seriously is on a par with consulting a psychic for business advice.”
Until somebody figures out how to get this little detail through to climate alarmists CAGW predictions will not cease.
Few alarmists will ever get it- it’ll just be another case of waiting for that generation to die off.
Plus the various models disagree strongly so there is no prediction to work with.
Why did you feel a need to insult ouija boards?
Companies/corporations are more worried about their stock prices today than some boogeyman in the future.
When will Companies Notice the Cost of Climate Change?
They noticed the cost, that’s why they ask for subsidies…
Time who?
“Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ Into the future …”
Steve Miller is more believable than Justin Worland.
If we keep installing the sillyass Chinese whirligigs, future generations won’t know what it means to “fly like an eagle, to the sea!”
It is actually worse than you say.
At this point, the “cost” of climate change is actually a positive revenue stream to large companies that have effective marketing departments. If you can create a green washing campaign that will fool the rubes, then money will flow to your company to “save the planet”.
Tesla is the greatest example I have ever seen of people politicizing their purchasing habits. When driving a Tesla earned you virtue-signaling points among the Leftists, they bought them in droves and added bumper stickers indicating you were a bad person for driving a SUV with an IC engine.
However, as soon as Musk bought Twitter and allowed Republicans to also post in the public sphere, then the Left boycotted Tesla, started vandalizing cars, and even burning down dealerships.
“a positive revenue stream”
Here in Wokeachusetts, a large non profit forestry outfit (New England Forestry Foundation) got a 30 million dollar grant from the Biden administration- to spread out to other forestry outfits and landowners to fight climate change with new and improved forestry practices. Of course they’ll manage to have some of that stick to their hands- while adding to their prestige among the forestry bureaucracies of New England- who have promoted subsidies to forest owners and the industry for decades, while watching forestry in New England slowly die off. As it dies off, the salaries of the forestry bureaucracies and academics in this region are doing just fine. I’ve been saying for years the industry should fight back- and try to terminate all these government and “non profit” parasites. Of course I’ve been ignored.
” they’ll manage to have some of that stick to their hands “
Well, that was the whole point of the grants. Is it not?
The top honcho of that NON PROFIT makes more money than anyone I know in the forestry world. He needs to keep bringing in the bucks.
“Green washing” I like it.
It’s hard to BBQ in Chicago under a mile of ice.
“Time”. Isn’t this the same Time that was predicting the “The New Coming Climate Freeze” in which we were all going to die from freezing temps? Time is well known for swaying whichever way the socialists winds blow. Marxist/Socialist/Communist winds are now blowing to a manufactured global warming wind; manufactured to control the masses, and destroy freedoms, Thank God of the Bible that we have had warming, for the recent Laurentide Ice Sheet covered all of Canada and northern parts of what are now the USA under 1 mile to 2.5 miles of ice.
Decades ago I subscribed to Time- it wasn’t terrible back then. In recent years it’s truly horrible. My late wife subscribed to it a few years ago. I was shocked at just how bad it was. Like most of the MSM.
Chicago pensions will emplode long before anything climate happens.
The ultimate insult to the Chicago coppers, courtesy of Pinhead Johnson and the Rotund Rotunda Dweller, Jelly Belly Pritzker.
My ex-wife would have donned thermals and winter gloves for half that amount; all the while glaring at me for having a window open!
She was frigid in more ways than one, I’m guessing.
All the experts, in every field think that climate change is an exaggerated issue that needs watching, but not acting on for the foreseeable future.
This goes for all businesses and all nations (see the regular COPs).
There are three outliers:
1) Climate scientists, obviously. If they were not already an outlier they would not be climate scientists. The best money for modelling the future is in the City. The only reason to choose climatology over the money is that you can’t get the money or… you are already overwhelmingly persuaded that climate change is not exaggerated.
2) The News Media, obviously. The End of the World is News. Nothing special going on, is not. If you are an environmental correspondent (or even a Science correspondent) you do not want to tell your editor that the story has blown over. All media jobs are under threat as the ad money has been scooped up by Google and Meta. It’s also the case that, like climate scientists, journalists who specialise in Climate are pre-biased to think it’s not exaggerated.
3) Artists. They know nothing of science. They like dramatic narratives. Same story as the News Media.
Everyone else knows that the whole AGW issue is marketing, not science. That’s the way they have been acting for years – with just enough patronising, warm words to keep the zealots off their back.
Time Magazine has just noticed that their delusion is not shared by everybody else and are baffled by it. If they had any humility, or any journalistic integrity, they would start to ask questions as to why that is so…
But they don’t.
Expect a new poll.
Companies make rational decisions. When something is subsidized there’s free money. They don’t care that the predictions made decades ago have not materialized, it is about how we can take money.
Science and health should not be subsidized by government. Government is political and has the agenda of getting votes. Science must be agenda-free.
When will companies notice the cost? They already do.
There is a tendency among actives, to believe that they know your business better than you do.
“If climate change ever negatively impacts profits, large companies will detect it immediately, and respond with precisely calibrated adaptive measures.”
Too bad most governments can’t perform as well. Excluding the Trump administration of course.
““If climate change ever negatively impacts profits”
It is all the stupid responses to the mythical “climate change” that are negatively impacting profits.
Companies around the western world have already detected the huge rise in costs of energy because of the introducing a whole heap of erratic unreliable sources into the electricity mix, and because of “environmental” rule making fuel production more expensive.
When the oceans boil dry next year they will notice that. I will be watching. LOL.
That would certainly make sea-floor mining operations much more profitable!
“Jamie Franco, the head of cross-asset research and sustainable investment “
Sounds totally unbiased to me…
Time: When will Companies Notice the Cost of Climate Change?
When the [free] money runs out – however you print it.
This faux concern about businesses resilient to “climate change risk” by Climate Caterwaulers is hilarious. They don’t give a rat’s patoutti about business. This is just one more way of attempting to spread their bogus climate propaganda.
I have this funny feeling that there hasn’t been any climate change recently. Oh a bit of warming. And none is forecast. See IPCC AR6 ch 12 p90 for chart .
Can you have Climate Change with no Change in tropical cyclones? Fall about arguing that one, you idiot!
Companies have noticed the cost of fighting climate change. It’s a YUGE burden.
The Guardian wannabe
What is the cost of the indefinable?
We should always be mindful of severe weather. We should take steps to prepare for the kinds of severe weather our area experiences. Climate change is a completely meaningless phrase and I will always ignore it and distrust people who are trying to profit by it. They can go to hell.
Clouds reflect sunlight back into space, and cloud modeling is orders of magnitude beyond modeling capability, so models use fudge factors for heat input location and amounts. Water Vapor is one of the main heat transports from the tropics to the poles and there are no flow meters in the sky, so models use guestimates and fudge factors again. There are no flowmeters in the oceans, just a few widely scattered velocity and temperature measurements, so the models use guestimates and fudge factors for the other major heat transport. So, fudge factors for the heat input and transport so the models can give the results that the modelers are paid to produce.
MODELS ARE USELESS FOR PREDICTING ANY CLIMATE CHANGE.
UAH shows that all warming in the last 45 years has come at strong El Nino events.
Not one model of the whole crapshoot knows anything about when El Nino events will occur…
… so none of them have any predictive value whatsoever.
May as well be playing “Sim City” or some other computer game.