The question now is whether China and India can take up the slack or not. A sustainable asset manager weighs in after the presidential election.
As we all know from President-elect Donald Trump’s first term, and a very public spat with teenage activist Greta Thunberg, the once and future leader of the US is no friend of climate change efforts.
A day following his election victory, expert reaction ranged from his presidency being a blow to efforts to slow global warming to an outright exit from the Paris Agreement (collated Google search).
Full-blown Retreat
This will also have a downrange impact on sustainability investment efforts, with Ninety One, an active, global investment manager weighing on the new status quo in a statement sent out on Thursday.
Nazmeera Mola, the chief sustainability officer, expects a full-blown retreat from all global climate initiatives as occurred during Trump first term. «This is likely to slow momentum to combat climate change unless other parts of the world step up and fill the gap,» Mola indicated.
Continued Focus Elsewhere
Still, Mola expects that China and India, and countries like them, will continue to focus on energy transition-related investments given they have provided financial benefits and growth.
UK-based Ninety One has had a presence in Asia since 1998. It has a regional headquarters in Hong Kong and first opened its Singapore office in 2012. Globally, it has $170.9 billion in assets under management as of September 30. It was first established as Investec Asset Management in South Africa in 1991 but demerged in 2020 into a globally active investment manager.
