If you could spend $100 million...

http://www.newscientist.com/blog/environment/labels/hsbc.html

Wednesday, May 30, 2007
If you could spend $100 million...

HSBC has thrown $100 million at the climate change problem. The money,
announced yesterday, is funding a five-year partnership between The
Climate Group, Earthwatch Institute, Smithsonian Tropical Research
Institute and WWF, which will include a number of large field studies
on forests and rivers.

I asked Dan Bebber, head of climate change research at EarthWatch to
tell me a bit about their forest research. Their aim is to help improve
forest-management policies given the predicted impacts of climate
change - such as more drought in some areas, more floods in others.

They will intensively monitor the woodlands along the Thames east of
Oxford, UK. Researchers and volunteers - some of whom, it is hoped,
will be HSBC employees - will go to the area every two weeks or so to
collect data on trees and mammals.

They will also collect soil samples to look at how it captures carbon;
study the debris that falls to the forest ground where it decays and
stores more carbon; look at how the local biodiversity will be affected
by increased risk of flooding, as predicted by climate change models...
The list of experiments goes on.

And they will be replicated in forests in the US, Brazil, India and
China - to the total tune of $35 million (the rest of the $100 million
will go to the Smithsonian, the Climate Group and WWF to carry out
other experiments).

All-in-all, it's an impressive programme. But I can't help but wonder
whether this is an HSBC publicity stunt - perhaps in response to the
bad press they've received recently on their action in Malaysian
forests? There are, after all, many research projects to study carbon
storage in forests; the UK Forestry Commission press office tells me
they have a programme specifically looking at how forestry management
needs to change in preparation for climate change; there are also
projects in Brazil studying how the genetics of trees there are
changing due to climate change.

So would the money not be better spent on enhancing existing projects?

On the other hand, it is encouraging to see a big corporation invest so
much money in environmental research. It reminds me of Richard
Branson's Virgin Earth Challenge. Businesses (and a few exceptionally
wealthy businessmen) have the sort of money - not to mention the
political sway - needed to boost preparation for climate change. Far be
it from me to want to dissuade them from doing just that.

So what do you think of HSBC's latest venture: a publicity stunt that
could have placed its funds more judiciously or an encouraging sign
that private money is starting to flow towards green ventures?

Catherine Brahic, online environment reporter