It's just hot air: Britain's low-carbon economy turns off irate investors With global warming set to wreak accelerating devastation on the global economy, the world's biggest fund managers - who between them control $14trn of investments in everything from wind turbines and agriculture to property and manufacturing - say they are considerably more worried about the issue than they were a year ago. They say an increase in costly extreme weather events such as Superstorm Sandy starkly demonstrate that climate change is already upon us and are concerned that governments, including the UK, are not doing nearly enough to prevent the situation getting considerably worse. Hundreds of billions of pounds desperately need to be spent in the coming years to keep the worst effects of climate change at bay, but without clear targets on renewable energy and global warming the investment will not be made, they warn. "Despite overwhelming scientific evidence that human activity is warming the planet with increasingly serious economic consequences, policymakers have failed to act with the level of urgency and clarity the problem requires," said Stephanie Pfeifer, chief executive of the European Investors Group on Climate Change, part of the global coalition of pension funds, insurance companies and other financial institutions raising the alarm in a new report. The coalition is calling on the UK to play a key role in dragging the world out of its climate change torpor by leading the green policy debate in Europe. It also wants the UK to play an active role in the run-up to a new international climate agreement due to be finalised in Paris in November 2015, which will seek to forge a hugely ambitious, legally-binding global treaty to limit global warming to 2C. Many of the investors are based in the UK and include the BT Pension Scheme, Aviva and Scottish Widows. The need for more decisive action by investors, by businesses and by policymakers is increasingly clear. If we don't get it then we won't be able to shift investment from high-carbon to low-carbon projects and there will be severe and significant impacts from climate change over the longer term," Ms Pfeifer added. Ms Pfeifer said that, without a large-scale shift from a high to low-carbon economy, the UK and the rest of the world would lose out on a great opportunity to create jobs. Furthermore, the cost of the fallout from climate change could deal a severe blow to the economy and, in turn, to pensions, as events such as the Superstorm Sandy, which caused more than $60bn in damages, become more common, she said. Ms Pfeifer cited recent research which showed that in the UK, the offshore wind industry alone could miss out on 15,000 new jobs over the next seven years as a result of government's "weak and unclear signals" on renewable energy policy - in particular the lack of a "decarbonisation" target that would make the country's electricity supply almost entirely green by 2030 . Meanwhile, a United Nations report last year forecast that up to 60m green jobs could be created globally if the world switches decisively to a low-carbon economy. The investors survey found institutions are taking climate change increasingly seriously but found that they are unable to invest anything like as much money as they would like in projects that would tackle global warming because they have a duty to their investors - in many cases company pension schemes - to maximise returns. Without clear green policies from the world's most influential governments, many such investments become high risk. Potential investors in UK renewable energy projects say they are being put off backing green power plants because a lack of policy clarity makes it difficult for them to determine their likely returns. Investment in British "clean energy" projects has tumbled from $4.2bn (£2.7bn) in July, August and September 2010 - the government's first full quarter in office - to just $1.7bn in the most recent quarter, from the start of April to the end of June, according to Bloomberg. The survey stopped short of singling out the UK government for giving a lack of clarity, saying that it was a Europewide and worldwide problem. But Ms Pfeifer conceded that "mixed messages are not helpful," when asked about the current UK government's record. Some 69 per cent of the fund managers surveyed - who collectively control $14trillion of investments worldwide - say they are only appointing senior executives with a strong focus on climate change, a significant increase on a year ago, when global warming influenced just 43 per cent of appointments. Meanwhile, 53 per cent of asset managers say they have either sold, or decided not to invest in, at least one company - or stake in a company - in the past year because of concerns about climate change. These include a wide range of investments such as high-carbon businesses that, for example, extract oil from tar sands or run coal-fired power stations, as well as agriculture, property and other sectors of the economy. Sometimes the investments are forgone for environmental reasons but more often there is an economic rationale. For example investors may be concerned that there may not be a long-term market for expensive renewably-generated energy, or that an area of farmland may become prone to rain or drought and therefore less productive. The survey included the views of 84 investment firms in ten countries around the world, also including The Church Commissioners for England, the London Borough of Islington Pension Fund, the West Yorkshire Pension Fund, BNP Paribas, , the California Public Employees' Retirement System and Bangkok Insurance.