With deepening concern over the climate crisis, the director of a global investments consulting company is advising his wealthiest clients to invest in heating, ventilation and air-conditioning firms.

“You cannot deny climate change,” said Peter Princi, managing director, institutional consulting director, Graystone Consulting for Morgan Stanley.

Speaking during a panel discussion on how global events are shaping captive strategies, Mr Princi said: “We are seeing more extreme weather patterns, whether it is fires or storms or heatwaves.”

Benchmark International, which deals with mergers and acquisitions, predicts the global HVAC industry will grow at a rate of 6.4 per cent in the next seven years, taking the market value from $218.32 billion to $338.62 billion.

Mr Princi’s firm has numerous clients who are rolling out HVAC businesses.

“In the United States the vast majority of homes already have air-conditioning systems,” he said. “You need to service them, and get a new system every ten years or so. In Europe, 15 per cent of homes have air conditioning. There are going to be opportunities because of that.”

Mr Princi warned that climate change will ultimately have a negative impact on global economic growth.

“There is no way we can stop climate change,” he said. “We can only slow it down.”

He said many countries have committed to reducing carbon emissions to net zero, but technology growth is outpacing any progress made. He pointed to artificial intelligence in cloud computing as an example.

“Nvidia chips now use five times the amount of power that AI systems used five years ago,” he said. “You cannot build enough wind and solar to keep up with that.”

He thought nuclear power was the answer.

“It is a little scary, but it is the only fix,” he said.

Mr Princi said China with 1.41 billion people, the world’s second most-populated country, does not appear to care about climate change or reducing carbon emissions. Meanwhile, India the country with the most people, 1.42 billion, is working hard to transition from a poor economy to a middle-class one.

“India cannot afford the higher cost of renewable energy,” he said. “So, unfortunately, I do not think climate change will get better any time soon.”

Another panellist, John Stoltzfus, chief strategist at Oppenheimer, had a less pessimistic outlook.

“Never has technology been so advanced to address this type of a problem,” he said. “Every year, the costs of technology tends to come down rather than go up, making technology more affordable and available.”

He said at the beginning of the pandemic, many of the world’s top scientists predicted it would take 40 years to develop a vaccine to target Covid-19.

“Instead, two companies produced two very effective vaccines in a matter of nine months,” he said.

Speaking on technology, Peter Downey, corporate investments, Barclays International, said it will take some time before we see real productivity gains from AI.

“If you think back to the Eighties, productivity was relatively low, and everyone had a computer on their desk,” he said. “It was not until the mid-Nineties where you began to see productivity grow.”