Pavan Sukhdev of the UN says in a new report that the benefits of halting enviromental devastation outweigh the costs – not only for the planet, but also for investors

Modern businesses are “soulless corporations” that are in danger of becoming a “cancer” on society, a leading UN environmental official warns today.

Companies usually take a short-term view of the importance of the environment, said Pavan Sukhdev, head of the UN’s investigation into how to stop the destruction of the natural world. This short-term thinking is seen in their lobbying against new policies that could slow environmental devastation, he said.

Sukhdev, now on sabbatical from Deutsche Bank, spoke as he prepares to publish tomorrow one of the most eagerly awaited parts of his report – The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) for Business.

The report will be launched at the first Global Business of Biodiversity symposium in London, where speakers will include environment secretary Caroline Spelman. She will highlight examples of businesses causing damage which imposes a huge cost on themselves and society – including an estimate that global destruction of forests costs the world’s economies $2tn-$5tn (£1.3tn-£3.3tn) a year.

She will also speak of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. “BP’s shares have halved since the spill began in mid-April – there will be no dividends this year,” she is due to say. “While the real impact on the local economy, wildlife and marine health may not be fully known for years … What’s bad for biodiversity is bad for business.”

Sukhdev told the Guardian that private businesses were too important as employers and payers of taxes to embark on a revolution, calling instead for society to take a greater responsibility for regulating the behaviour of companies. When the final report is published, at a biodiversity conference in October in Japan, Sukhdev will recommend major changes in the way companies are regulated.

“We have created a soulless corporation that does not have any innate reason to be ethical about anything,” he said. “The purpose of a corporation is its own self-interest. That is law. So it’s up to society and its leaders and thinkers to design the checks and balances that are needed to ensure that the corporation does not simply become cancerous, and that’s something that sometimes we do and sometimes we really don’t.”

TEEB was set up after the success of the groundbreaking 2006 report by Sir Nicholas Stern for the UK government. The Stern report argued that the cost of tackling climate change would be 1-2% of the global economy, while the cost of doing nothing would be up to 20 times that.

In the first two parts of the five-part final report, already published, the UN team argue powerfully that the failure of governments and businesses to put a “price” on ecosystem services provided by nature – from flood protection and pollination of crops, to carbon take-up by forests and the sheer wonder of nature – has led to widespread destruction of whole ecosystems and of the variety of all life on Earth.

Research by London-based consultancy Trucost for the study team estimated the world’s 3,000 biggest companies caused US$2.2tn (£1.46tn) of environmental damage in 2008.

Sukhdev’s final report is expected to argue that the benefits of halting and reversing the devastation outweigh the costs even more powerfully than the case argued by Stern for tackling climate change.

A spokesman for TEEB said that the latest report would argue that many impacts of business were not costed financially and so led to damage to the environments they operate or pollute into, “which in turn may affect human well-being adversely”.

“This report is for a wide array of enterprises, including those with direct impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity, such as mining, oil and gas and infrastructure; for those businesses that depend on healthy ecosystems and biodiversity for production, such as agriculture and fisheries; for industry sectors that finance and under-gird economic activity and growth, like banks and asset managers, as well as insurance and business services; and for businesses that are selling ecosystem services or biodiversity-related products such as eco-tourism, eco-agriculture and bio-carbon,” added the statement.

Previously, Sukhdev has called for governments and businesses to be forced to report their environmental and social impacts alongside – not separately from – their financial accounts, and stricter limits on extraction and pollution.

• This article was amended on 13 July 2010. The original said Pavan Sukhdev was a former adviser to the Indian government. He has never held that role. It also misquoted him as saying: “The purpose of a corporation is to be selfish.” This has been corrected.

Nothing about the so-called Climategate affair challenges the fact that climate change is real, urgent and increasing

There was no scientific scandal, only scientific stupidity. There was no attempt to hoax the world into believing that climate change exists, just excessive secrecy. There was no panicky cover-up to hide rigged data, for no data was rigged. There was no cabal of scientists cooking up fake evidence of catastrophe. There is, however, a real crisis of the most extreme nature: evidence suggests that climate change is real, urgent and increasing. Nothing about the so-called Climategate affair challenges that fact.

This is the most important finding of Sir Muir Russell’s report into emails stolen from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, which was published yesterday. It is not, however, his only finding. His report is not an exoneration. “Their rigour and honesty as scientists is not in doubt,” he writes. But “there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness”.

This failure runs far further than a bit too much secrecy. There was an attempt to restrict debate, denying access to raw data and peer-reviewed journals to outsiders and the unqualified. In a sense, climate change scientists began to ape the obsessive culture of their sceptical critics. There was a clash between the traditional academic scientific process – closed, small and by its nature uncertain – and the new political demands imposed by climate change – confrontational, in search of absolutes and intolerant of any uncertainty. One can understand why the scientists behaved as they did. But this does not make it right.

Even Charles Darwin might have wilted under the sort of scrutiny recently imposed on the Climatic Research Unit. Sir Muir’s report follows two other, briefer inquiries this year, by a Commons select committee and the Royal Society. It also comes on the heels of the environmental journalist Fred Pearce’s exhaustive series of reports for the Guardian. Perhaps no body of scientific research has been so intensively examined for flaws in its process: and the science – if not all the scientists – passed the test. As Sir Muir puts it, “We have found no evidence of behaviour that might undermine the conclusions of the IPCC assessment.”

The central charge against the UEA scientists is that they knowingly fixed data and hid contradictions in order to disseminate an absolutist view of the climate crisis. This was most famously displayed in the so-called hockey stick graph, which seemed to show global temperatures shooting up as a result of human action. This chart became an icon of the crisis, used, without any of the necessary qualifying labels (which reduced its dramatic impact), by campaigners for action and disputed vehemently by sceptics.

Their minds will not be changed by yesterday’s findings. Doubters will point to the fact that the report did not pass judgment on the scientific value of the CRU’s work – only on the process exposed by the more than 1,000 emails leaked to the media shortly before last year’s Copenhagen summit. These emails, which mostly concerned work to establish past temperature records, make startling reading. Quoted selectively, they seemed to show that scientists were hiding the truth. Even taken as a whole, they show a closed and arrogant attitude on the part of some of those involved, protective of their data sets and dismissive of outsiders. The secretive nature of the CRU’s work, intended to protect climate science from unqualified intruders, ended up doing great damage instead. There was nothing to hide. Openness was not something to fear.

We still do not know how the emails came into the public domain, only that they came out at the worst possible time. They played a small part in wrecking the Copenhagen summit, feeding the sense that perhaps the world does not face a crisis after all. It would be nice if this were true. But the science stands. The nations must now re-engage with it.

Business underestimating catastrophic consequences of declining oil, says Lloyd’s of London/Chatham House report

One of the City’s most respected institutions has warned of “catastrophic consequences” for businesses that fail to prepare for a world of increasing oil scarcity and a lower carbon economy.

The Lloyd’s insurance market and the highly regarded Royal Institute of International Affairs, known as Chatham House, says Britain needs to be ready for “peak oil” and disrupted energy supplies at a time of soaring fuel demand in China and India, constraints on production caused by the BP oil spill and political moves to cut CO2 to halt global warming.

“Companies which are able to take advantage of this new energy reality will increase both their resilience and competitiveness. Failure to do so could lead to expensive and potentially catastrophic consequences,” says the Lloyd’s and Chatham House report “Sustainable energy security: strategic risks and opportunities for business”.

The insurance market has a major interest in preparedness to counter climate change because of the fear of rising insurance claims related to property damage and business disruption. The review is groundbreaking because it comes from the heart of the City and contains the kind of dire warnings that are more associated with environmental groups or others accused by critics of resorting to hype. It takes a pot shot at the International Energy Agency which has been under fire for apparently under-estimating the threats, noting: “IEA expectations [on crude output] over the last decade have generally gone unmet.”

The report the world is heading for a global oil supply crunch and high prices owing to insufficient investment in oil production plus a rebound in global demand following recession. It repeats warning from Professor Paul Stevens, a former economist from Dundee University, at an earlier Chatham House conference that lack of oil by 2013 could force the price of crude above $200 (£130) a barrel.

It also quotes from a US department of energy report highlighting the economic chaos that would result from declining oil production as global demand continued to rise, recommending a crash programme to overhaul the transport system. “Even before we reach peak oil,” says the Lloyd’s report, “we could witness an oil supply crunch because of increased Asian demand. Major new investment in energy takes 10-15 years from the initial investment to first production, and to date we have not seen the amount of new projects that would supply the projected increase in demand.”

And while the world is gradually moving to new kinds of clean energy technologies the insurance market warns that there could be shortages of earth metals and other raw materials needed to help them thrive.

Lloyd’s also calls on manufacturers, retailers and the wider business community to reassess global supply chains and their just-in time models because the “current system is increasingly vulnerable to disruption.”

The report says government needs to do much more to bring additional price stability and transparency if the global carbon market is to become a reality.

Richard Ward, chief executive of Lloyd’s, said the failure of the Copenhagen climate change talks last December has helped lull many business leaders into a false sense of security about the challenges ahead. “We are in a period akin to a phony war. We keep hearing of difficulties to come, but with oil, gas and coal still broadly accessible – and largely capable of being distributed where they are needed – the bad times have not yet hit … all businesses … will be affected by energy supplies which are less reliable and more expensive.”

• This article was amended on 12 July 2010. The original referred to Chatham House as being the Institute of Strategic Studies. It is the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

Studies predict major extinctions and collapse of Greenland ice sheet with temperatures rising well above UN targets

The world is heading for an average temperature rise of nearly 4C (7F), according to analysis of national pledges from around the globe at the midpoint between two major international conferences aiming to tackle the problem. Such a rise would bring a high risk of major extinctions, threats to food supplies and the near-total collapse of the huge Greenland ice sheet.

More than 100 heads of state agreed in Copenhagen last December to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5C-2C (2.7-3.6F) above the long-term average before the industrial revolution, which kickstarted a massive global increase in the greenhouse gases blamed for warming the planet and triggering climate change.

But six months on, a major international effort to monitor the emissions reductions targets of more than 60 countries, including all the major economies, the Climate Interactive Scoreboard, calculates that the world is on course for a rise of nearly double the stated goal by 2100.

Another study by Climate Analytics, at the Potsdam Institute in Germany, suggests there is “virtually no chance” world governments will keep the temperature rise to below 2C, and the rise is likely to be 3.5C (6.3F) by the end of the century.

In both analyses the current commitments suggest a much better outcome than the estimated business-as-usual temperature rise of 4.8C (8.6F), but are well above the 2C maximum the UN hoped would be agreed at the next major meeting this December in Cancún, Mexico – and even further from the 1.5C target many developing nations argue is needed to stop the worst impacts of climate change in their countries.

In its last assessment of the problem in 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecasts that a rise of more than 2C would lead to potential increases in food production, but an increasingly high risk of extinction for 20-30% of species, more severe droughts and floods, and a unstoppable “widespread to near total” loss of the Greenland ice sheet over very long time periods. However, at 4C it predicted global food production was “very likely” to decrease, “major extinctions around the globe”, and near-total loss of Greenland’s ice, precipitating 2-7m of sea-level rise in the long term. As temperatures rose, the severity of floods, erosion, water pollution, heatwaves, droughts and health problems such as malnutrition and diarrhoea diseases would also increase, said the IPCC.

“We’re looking at a level which is much more extreme and profoundly dangerous,” said Ruth Davis, chief policy adviser for Greenpeace. “It’s arguable the UN process has become dangerously cut adrift from the science of climate change.”

The Department of Energy and Climate Change said that, based on national offers of emissions reductions made in Copenhagen, the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) and other bodies had calculated that it was possible to meet the 2C target, although this would depend on the targets set beyond 2020.

“There’s more work to do if we’re going to avoid a 2C temperature rise which is why we’re pushing the EU to cut its emissions by 30%,” said a DECC spokesman. “Keeping below 2C is still possible from the high end Copenhagen accord offers, but will require steeper action after 2020.”

However, many experts said the much higher temperature-rise estimates were a cause for serious concern that emissions cuts proposed for Cancún were too low and not enough was being done to prepare for further cuts beyond 2020, even though there are still nearly six months of negotiations before the talks.

“We’ve made progress but we’re clearly not headed where we need to be,” said Andrew Jones, co-director of Climate Interactive, which is backed by several universities including MIT. “No one is talking about changing any of the 2020 proposals, so we should be worried.” Climate Interactive’s model is also backed by a panel of experts including Prof Bob Watson, chief scientific advisor to the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), and a former head of the IPCC.

The Climate Interactive Scoreboard, for which researchers check daily for updates in emissions or other targets which would reduce pollution such as reductions in energy intensity or increases in renewable energy, makes a medium-range prediction of a 3.9C increase in temperatures, with a range of 2.3-6.2C (4.2-11.1F), based on committed targets, and a more encouraging 2.9C (5.2F) average, with a range of 1.7-4.6C (3.1-8.5F) based on “potential” commitments suggested but not enacted by many nations.

One of the major barriers to setting higher emissions cuts was a great many countries, including Canada and the EU, have said they do not want to increase their targets until the US sets significant reductions, which is proving hard for President Obama to achieve, said Davis.

Climate Analytics and Ecofys, under the banner of Climate Action Tracker, estimate a range of 2.8-4.3C.

The principal differences between the two calculations are that they use different models, and made different assumptions about what countries will do after their current targets expire, said Jones.

In both cases, there has been no improvement to the forecast outcome since the experts assessed the prospects immediately after the Copenhagen conference.

The predictions will be particularly worrying for many watchers because the 2C target was based on research which suggested that at that level there was only a low to medium risk of key changes to the conditions in which humans survive; however an update of the “burning embers diagram” by the authors, published last year by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in the US, suggested that at 2C there greater risk in all categories, including a significant to high risk to unique and threatened ecosystems, of extreme weather events and a global distribution of the worst threats.

Juliette Jowit

Global investments in clean energy companies rose 43% in Q2 on last year, says new Cleantech Group and Deloitte report

Green tech is back in the green.

Global venture capital investment in green technology companies reached $4.04 billion in the first half of 2010, exceeding — slightly — the record set in the boom year of 2008, according to a preliminary report released Thursday by the Cleantech Group and Deloitte.

Venture investment in the second quarter rose to $2.02 billion, up 43 percent from the year-ago quarter. Investments in the first half of the year spiked 65 percent from the same period in 2009.

“There’s been a very clear resurgence in solar activity and that is largely responsible for the strong quarter,” Richard Youngman, the Cleantech Group’s head of global research, said on a conference call Thursday.

Solar captured $811 million, or about 40 percent, of green technology investment in the second quarter, according to the Cleantech Group, a San Francisco-based consulting and research firm. It defines the global market as consisting of North America, China, India, Israel, and Europe.

Solyndra, a Silicon Valley thin-film solar panel maker, scored a $175 million investment while solar power plant builder BrightSource Energy took in $150 million.

It’s no coincidence that both companies have been the beneficiaries of the Obama administration’s push for renewable energy. Solyndra received a $535 million loan guarantee to build a new factory in the San Francisco Bay Area (which the president visited in May) and BrightSource was granted a $1.37 billion loan guarantee to get its first solar thermal power plant online.

Despite the recession, corporate America poured a record $5.1 billion into green tech companies in the first half of 2010, a 325 percent increase from a year ago.

“The significant strengthening of corporate and utility investment into the clean tech sector, relative to 2009, is very encouraging, given the key role they will play in enabling broader adoption of clean technologies at scale,” Scott Smith, Deloitte’s U.S. clean tech leader in the United States, said in a statement.

Youngman warned not to read too much into the success this week of Tesla Motor’s initial public offering. Though the Silicon Valley electric carmaker’s share price accelerated some 40.5 percent on opening day, he pointed out that high-profile IPOs from Solyndra and Goldwind, a Chinese wind turbine maker, were pulled recently.

In fact, head east if you want to get in on a booming IPO market — 12 of the 19 green tech offerings in the second quarter came from Chinese companies and raised $1.73 billion, or 75 percent of the total IPO take, according to the Cleantech Group.

The flip side, of course, is that the anemic IPO market in the United States also is driving venture capital investment as green tech firms are forced to raise private money.