2012 Registration document and annual financial report - BNP Paribas

7ARESPONSIBLE BANK: INFORMATION ON BNP PARIBAS’ ECONOMIC,SOCIAL, CIVIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITYEnvironmental responsibility: combating climate changeSUPPORTING RESEARCH TO COMBAT CLIMATE CHANGE7The BNP Paribas Group strives not just to monitor the potential impact ofits own activities, but also to support efforts to protect the environment.In 2012, the BNP Paribas Foundation, in close collaboration with the CSRfunction, continued to work on the Climate Initiative, the philanthropyprogramme that it launched in 2011 to support fundamental researchinto climate change.With a budget of EUR 3 million over three years, this programmeis supporting five research projects by internationally renownedlaboratories. These will increase our understanding of how the climatesystem operates and allow for sophisticated predictions of the possibleconsequences:■ “eFOCE”. Ocean acidification, caused by absorption into seawater of onequarter of the CO 2emitted, affects marine flora and fauna. The aim ofeFOCE is verify hypotheses advanced about the biological processesinvolved in this phenomenon via long-term studies conducted in thenatural environment; as overall conclusions cannot be derived fromlaboratory-based research on isolated cases.■ Financing provided by BNP Paribas has enabled researchers to createan innovative mechanism adapted to the complex manipulationof water acidity in the natural environment. A container has beendesigned to collect the flora and fauna to be studied; it is left open soas not to trap them inside. Controlled by sensors, it is subjected to aconstant flow of water containing CO 2in the proportion expected tobe present at the end of the century.■ Algae damaged by acidification were studied at the end of 2012. In2013, attention will turn to an important Mediterranean plant that,on the contrary, is capable of utilising CO 2.■ “Access to climate archives”. At the end of the first quarter of 2013,with the help of the Foundation, the meteorological data collectedin France between 1855 and 1960, i.e. 100 years of records, will bemade fully available to the scientific community under a project runby Météo France and the French National Archives. The previouslyunusable 6,300 boxes of archives, which have gradually been cleanedand decontaminated from abestos, are starting to yield their secrets.They represent a valuable resource for researchers, because goingback in time helps to consolidate our understanding of climate andrefine our forecasts for the impact of human activity. Making use ofall the existing resources is therefore essential for anticipating trends.The archives will also be used as educational material and will be thesubject of a major exhibition in 2015.■ “Subglacior”. The aim of this project is to carry out the first-everanalysis of the earth’s atmosphere of more than one million yearsago, a period of major climate change that has never yet been explored.Analysing the air trapped in polar ice and establishing a link betweenits CO 2content and the climate change of the period should enableresearchers to improve their assessment of the sensitivity of theclimate to the increased CO 2stemming from human activity today.A revolutionary probe has been designed, containing a laser thatinstantaneously analyses the ice in situ. Transmitting data to thesurface in real time, it can achieve much more in a single australsummer than analysis of ice cores dating back no more than 800,000years extracted in a series of campaigns. BNP Paribas’ support wasdecisive for launching a prototype and working on a drilling technique;it also acted as an impetus for winning significant funding from theEuropean Research Council (ERC) as well as help from the AgenceNationale de la Recherche (ANR). The project can thus be seenthrough to conclusion, with a campaign of measurements scheduledfor 2016-2017.■ “PRECLIDE”. Predicting climate change over the next ten to thirty years:this is the objective of this project, which should yield projections on ahuman timescale that more closely address the concerns of decisionmakersand citizens. In order to initialise their climate models,researchers use both oceanographic measurements and atmosphericparameters. They then calculate retrospective forecasts, which theycompare with actual data in order to refine their models.During this first phase of the project, support provided by BNP Paribasmade it possible to link up Météo France’s atmospheric model withthe Nemo oceanic model designed by the Centre National de laRecherche Scientifique (CNRS). Forecasts were drawn up for eachfive-year period based on the data available since 1960. The firstresults, currently being processed, confirm that forecasts for ten-yearperiods are possible. From 2014, once the model has been improved byfurther simulations, forecasts will be issued each year in order to raiseawareness of the major climate challenges of the future.■ “Global Carbon Atlas”. The aim is to create an interactive map ofplaces of CO 2emission and absorption and of flows of greenhouse gasesaround the planet. These are being researched locally, but knowledgeof their distribution and fluctuation remains scant; by contrast, thisproject provides an overall synthetic view.Financing provided by the BNP Paribas Foundation paid for therecruitment of a scientist who catalogued, collated and standardisedall the international data during the fourth quarter of 2012. In 2013,the Foundation’s help will enable an IT specialist to translate the datainto maps, with explanatory texts, so that citizens, decision-makersand politicians can assimilate them.At local level, BNP Paribas is also supporting other research programmes,including the following:■ In Asia, GECD employees are working with the Asia Investor Groupon Climate Change (AIGCC) and universities in order to analyse thepotential financial impacts of climate change on businesses in thePearl River Delta. This region, which is particularly vulnerable toenvironmental risks, is economically essential, as it generates onethirdof China’s exports.■ In Bulgaria, the BNP Paribas Foundation Bulgaria is financing fourwind generators for a Bulgarian Antarctic base dedicated to climatechange research.4202012 Registration document and annual financial report - BNP PARIBAS