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Flashmag January 2020 www.flashmag.net
STOCK EXCHANGE
Speculating on water or air is no longer impossible
ECONOGRAM
economy
speculators can already bet on snow, wind and rain, using futures contracts, which can be traded - sold and bought - on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The value of the meteorology market increased by 20% between 2010 and 2011. But this sector remains small: it represents only 11.8 billion dollars.
Meanwhile, this type of forward transaction proves that the fever that has gripped Wall Street is transforming mother nature into the mother of all casinos.
Some environmentalists believe that putting a price on freshwater would be the best way to save the world's water capital. The more expensive it will cost, the less we will waste the resource.
Global warming, pollution, demographic pressure, extension of agricultural areas: everywhere in the world, the demand for water explodes and the supply becomes scarce. By 2050, one in four people will live in a country affected by shortages. After gold and oil, the "blue gold", the most coveted resource on the planet, is fueling the appetites of financial giants, who are betting on its rising value, a source of staggering profits. Today, banks and investment funds - Goldman Sachs, HSBC, UBS, Allianz, Deutsche Bank or BNP - are working to create promising markets in this sector and to speculate, with, strangely, the support of Environmental NGOs. They claim they want to buy water "to return it to nature", seeing in this new liberal order a mean of protecting the environment.