The Market Value of Australian Oil and Gas Industry and Climate Change: The VAR, ARCH, GARCH Approaches

Abstract

This study empirically examines and analyses the relationship between climate change and shareholder value in the oil and gas industry in an Australian context. This research is timely and significant, given that climate change will have a profound impact on the oil and gas industry in uncertain carbon-constrained and climate-affected economy. The oil and gas industry, whose main purpose is the production of hydrocarbons, is highly important and relevant to the Australian economy in its wealth generation and power supply. Since oil and gas companies are responsible for a substantial proportion of environmental impacts, investors' perceptions about the financial relevance of climate change has become critically important to real-world climate change outcomes. The VAR, ARCH and GARCH models have been applied to obtain the more robust and informative results. The study concludes that some of Australia's weather-related information is value relevant. Surprisingly, the temperature does not appear to be significant. However, a weather risk hedge could enable the weather-sensitive sector to achieve weather-dependent results stabilisation.