‘Ending the overconsumption of and underinvestment in nature requires bringing natural assets into the financial mainstream,’ the NYSE states.
Wall Street has found a new way to fight global warming and turn a profit in the process, by monetizing the right to control America’s public and private land.
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), together with an organization called the Intrinsic Exchange Group (IEG), have proposed setting up a new type of company called a Natural Asset Company (NAC), which would pool investors’ money from around the world to buy the rights to land in the United States with the goal of restricting its use to “sustainable” endeavors.
According to the NYSE’s filing with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), despite the many options to invest in eco-friendly funds or donate to nonprofits for land preservation, “investors still express an unmet need for efficient, pure-play exposure to nature and climate.
“Ending the overconsumption of and underinvestment in nature requires bringing natural assets into the financial mainstream,” the NYSE states.
The goal of this initiative is to turn the rights to use public land and water resources into financial instruments so that they can be bought, sold, and traded for profit.
“Healthy ecosystems produce clean air and water, foster biodiversity, regulate the climate, and provide the food on which our existence depends,” the NYSE filing states. “These and other benefits derived from ecosystems are called ecosystem services, and in the aggregate, economists estimate their value at more than US$100 trillion dollars per year.”
Investors may see dollar signs, but critics see a dark side.
“It is an effort to impose another layer of control, and to securitize our national parks, our national forest lands, and some private properties throughout the entire United States,” Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wyo.) told The Epoch Times. “This is just a sneaky way to allow very wealthy people to control even more of our natural resources.
“They’re trying to sell this concept of having the right to exclude people from being able to use and access what is our legacy, our lands.”
The federal government owns nearly half of the land in Wyoming, Ms. Hageman’s home state.
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