Sustainably Investing in Digital Assets Globally

Chapter 43The Need to Report Carbon Emissions Amid the Coronavirus Pandemic

Climate change caused by carbon emissions might be one reason for such a terrible global COVID‐19 pandemic scenario.

JPMorgan Chase, the first American bank to create and successfully test a digital coin representing a fiat currency, also provided the most fossil fuel financing out of any bank in the world, according to a 2019 report titled “Banking on Climate Change.”¹ The bank recently joined a chorus of other financial institutions and endowments that have declared that they will, going forward, be reluctant to provide funding to the fossil fuel industry—which energizes emerging digital technologies and companies—in order to mitigate the effects of climate change.

In a hard‐hitting report released to clients on the same day the World Health Organization published its 32nd coronavirus update, economists at JPMorgan Chase warned that human life “as we know it” could be threatened by climate change. Without action being taken, there could be “catastrophic outcomes.”

Carbon pollution defies national borders and is inescapable. The true cost of climate change is felt when it penetrates deep into our respiratory and circulatory systems and damages our lungs, which are highly vulnerable to the coronavirus, according to a report prepared by the WHO. The economists at JPMorgan Chase state that “climate change could affect economic growth, shares, health and how long people live.”

In order to mitigate the ...