Economic growth is slowly but surely coming to an end, not for a few quarters or years, but to an end. It will still take some time given the mighty momentum behind it, as well as the power of our denial, but the signs are clear that both processes have begun.

China has become the best example that this Great Disruption is underway. In the same way China provides an exaggerated case of the good aspects of growth, they are now hitting the limits we are hitting globally, but doing so faster and harder, making it more noticeable and harder to deny. But unlike our political leaders, the Chinese leadership is slowly but surely facing reality. They observe their high growth rates, they observe the degradation in both their environment and limits to resource availability and they draw the obvious connection…“In China’s thousands of years of civilization, the conflict between humankind and nature has never been as serious as it is today…. The depletion, deterioration and exhaustion of resources and the worsening ecological environment have become bottlenecks and grave impediments to economic and social development.”

You got it Mr Zhou – grave impediments to growth. They haven’t yet come to the conclusion that these are in fact “impenetrable limits to growth”. But they will.

Why didn’t more of us see it coming? After all, the signals have been clear enough – signals that the ecological system that supports human society is hitting its limits, groaning under the strain of an economy simply too big for the planet. But we didn’t and, as a result, the time to act preventatively has passed.

Now we must brace for impact. Now comes The Great Disruption.

It is true that the coming years won’t be pleasant, as our society and economy hits the wall and then realigns around what was always an obvious reality: You cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet. Not ‘should not’, or ‘better not’, but cannot.

We can, however, get through what’s ahead – if we prepare…we can even come out the other side in better shape.

We all know the argument; Governments are inherently ineffective at guiding markets and will always screw it up when they try to. Markets, the argument goes, are inherently more efficient at picking technologies and responding to constraints, so should be left to do their thing

People who want to resist change, for any number of reasons, latch on to this argument as another excuse to avoid action on climate. After all, even if climate is a problem, government will surely get it wrong if they try to fix it. It is this argument, along with climate scepticism and the over-riding priority given to economic growth, which has, in various combinations, been used against climate action since the threat became clear in the late 1980’s.

Yes, we forget how long this problem has been in the mainstream debate. It was back then that the pro-market, conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher argued: “The danger of global warming is as yet unseen but real enough for us to make changes and sacrifices, so that we do not live at the expense of future generations.”

The very conservative International Energy Agency has just released its closely watched annual World Energy Outlook (WEO), with forecasts for the structure of the energy market through to 2035. This year’s WEO was much anticipated, given the pace of developments in renewables and climate policy, and it didn’t disappoint. The report included the IEA’s interpretation of what major governments’ commitment to a 2°C temperature target would mean for the energy market. The contrast with what most market players assume, particularly coal companies, could hardly be more dramatic.

The future is now closing in on us rapidly and the resulting shifts in investment markets are gathering pace. When Phil Preston and I started working on the paper we released here last week, Carbon Induced Financial Disruption, the idea we were advocating – of disruptive change in financial markets driven by market’s pricing in carbon risk – seemed like a radical one. That was just March this year, yet six months later similar ideas are taking hold across the mainstream market and in the business press…

The context here is key to understanding what’s to come. We haven’t actually decided to fix climate change yet, with much policy action stalled both globally and in key markets like the United States. This means what we are seeing now is just a small taste of what’s to come when we really get moving. As Jeremy Grantham argued, this is the most important investment issue around and as Bob Litterman points out, the process of change will not be slow and smooth but late and sudden. Given it is already “late”, it’s now time to hold on for the ride. But you might want to make sure your investment portfolio is ready.

The only sure thing in how climate change will unfold in politics and the economy is that it will happen in surprising and unexpected ways. This reliable fact has been on my mind as I’ve worked with investment and risk expert, Phil Preston, on a major new paper we are releasing today that looks at carbon investment risk through the lens of climate science.

We examined whether the tipping point for the now inevitable economic transformation could occur in financial markets rather than in the world of politics or public opinion. This is the opposite of what most people expect – they assume that regulation and the pricing of carbon will be the trigger for market shift. But what if markets move first by pricing in risk and what if they do so more quickly and more dramatically than anyone expects?

It’s time for a true confession. I don’t believe in climate science.

That’s because I’m a rational person. Belief is important in my life and I apply the term to things involving faith. Faith is how we believe when there is no rational basis for a decision – which doesn’t mean its irrational or wrong, just that there is no evidence to support the view taken. Faith and belief often apply to matters of the spiritual realm. But they also apply to matters of a more worldly nature, where the capacity for faith and belief has framed many positive developments in humanity over history. Despite the lack of supporting evidence, Churchill believed the allies would win WWII and Mandela believed majority rule would come, relatively peacefully, to South Africa. Faith is a powerful driver of human behaviour.

Much has been written lately about the emerging battle between China and the United States in the race to a low-carbon future. While the US clearly has considerable advantage with its history of success in innovation and technology, its lack of responsiveness, to date, is seeing the advantage steadily move to China.

There is great irony in this. For decades, many western companies have argued against stronger environmental policies on the grounds of loss of competitiveness to China and the developing world – so-called carbon leakage. The argument has been that if western countries made their companies behave more cleanly, Chinese companies would be able to out-compete them because they could pollute freely and therefore have lower costs.

What’s been happening while the west has been delaying action, partly in response to this argument, is that China has caught up and is now seriously pursuing a low-carbon economy. Do they want to save the world? No, they want to own it.

Beware the coming climate storm. A moment is approaching when science and markets will collide, but then merge, with chilling consequences for investors who miss the moment, and great excitement for those who are well prepared.

The signs are all around us now. Signs that a storm of climate action will soon rage through the economy, sweeping away denial and, along with it, those companies, politicians, investors and industries that aren’t ready.

For over a decade I have gone out of my way to buy fuel from BP. They’ve always seemed the best of the bad, with their solar business, climate policy leadership and forward thinking culture and people. The other day I couldn’t bring myself to do it. In fact I doubt I’ll ever drive into a BP station again.

Although BP has rather bigger problems on its mind than whose fuel I buy in Australia, while driving past I started considering a potential development that would certainly get their attention. It all starts with BP’s CEO Tony Hayward now famous approach to leadership on environmental questions. He proudly explained his views in a frank speech at Stanford University last year. He said too many BP people were “working to save the world” whereas they should focus on making money because BP’s “primary purpose in life is to create value for shareholders.”

I understand quite a bit about saving the world and about creating value for shareholders. I’ve spent roughly half my working life as an environmental campaigner, including as global head of Greenpeace, and the other half as a business owner and corporate advisor working with the CEOs of a number of the world’s largest companies. The former taught me how people think and act on environmental issues, the latter taught me about the relationship between profits and good corporate citizenship. BP’s Deep Horizon disaster may bring these two issues together in ways that I never expected. As a result Tony Hayward may, ironically and unintentionally, do more to “save the world” than anyone before him at BP. Here’s why.