Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to the Australian Financial Review, $30 trillion to provide electricity to people who already have electricity is a greater investment opportunity than the internet.
Climate change ‘biggest investment opportunity since the internet’
An estimated $41 trillion is required to decarbonise the planet, giving investors the chance to profit from a growing mega-trend.
Alex Gluyas
Markets Reporter
Sep 1, 2021 – 5.00amA growing chorus in the investment community is warning that investors need to climate-proof their portfolios or risk missing out on potentially overlooked returns offered by the global transition to a zero-carbon economy.
This comes amid an accelerating urgency by many overseas governments to implement measures aimed at achieving net zero emissions by 2050. This is to avoid reaching the critical 1.5-degree tipping point which the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says at current rates could occur as early as next decade.
Australia remains with the same commitment made in 2015 under then prime minister Tony Abbott – to be 26 to 28 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.
The investment required to decarbonise the planet is estimated to be more than $US30 trillion ($41.2 trillion), presenting investors with a rare opportunity to invest in companies that will be involved in the race to net zero.
“Climate change is the next major mega-trend, and we believe it represents the biggest investment opportunity since the internet,” says portfolio manager at Munro Partners James Tsinidis.
“We’re just at the beginning of the next big S-curve, a massive and sustainable decades-long growth trend.”
…
Read more: https://www.afr.com/wealth/personal-finance/climate-change-biggest-investment-opportunity-since-the-internet-20210826-p58m4w
Leaving aside the in my opinion suspect $30 trillion estimate (no mention of grid battery backup storage, which adds at least $50 trillion to that figure by my calculations), there seems very little evidence people will put up with this magnitude of expenditure worked into their energy bills or taxes, for a commodity they already have access to.
In fact quite the opposite, when you consider the Yellow Vest protests in Europe, which started as opposition to French efforts to introduce a climate fuel tax, or surveys showing how few people are willing to pay for climate action.
Return on investment for renewables is utterly dependent on fickle political commitment to funding the boondoggle. As the Spanish government’s retrospective solar tariff cut demonstrated, when governments run out of money, keeping faith with their renewable energy commitments is not at the top of their list of priorities. And there are a lot of reasons to be concerned that Western governments will run short of money over the next 30 years.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Decarbonise the planet? Oxymoron much?
When I saw the headline I thought about something; we can be REALLY glad they didn’t decide to de-oxygenize the planet! There’s a lot more oxygen than there is CO2, you know, and couldn’t that be just as ‘deadly’ as carbon? I shouldn’t be giving them ideas, I guess!
Hyperoxia is not a pretty thing, is it?
Sure, right after investors gain from this problem….
India asks utilities to import coal amid short supply as demand spikes (yahoo.com)
India constantly tries to mobilise its coal mining industry to avoid imports and constantly fails.
Griffy, India’s coal industry can’t keep up with increased demand from power generation – what with expanding their existing power plants and building new ones to provide electricity for their people. And weren’t you just saying upthread that “..coal has failed to arrive and deliver power or a grid to very large areas of the world…” well India is a large area of the world and coal is delivering their power grid.
China is an even bigger “area of the world”. For that matter, every industrialized country on the planet started by using coal for power. It wasn’t until much later that oil and natural gas started to make inroads.
Because electricity demand is increasing exponentially in India as it becomes more wealthy. Got to power all those spam call, email and SMS houses somehow.
Just a minute ago you claimed that coal had never worked to power any country, and now you tell us that India is importing massive amounts of coal on top of domestic supplies to support its electricity generation. Work out which it is, mate.
Multiple posts on this site have touched on the resource constraints facing any significant deployment of Unreliables™. Your ignorance is exceeded only by your hubris.
Resource depletion is a specialty research branch of econ– that you are not trained in. For those who are trained in it and experienced, it is one of the easier ways of spotting troll arguments and their weak points. The easiest weak point of them all is “crustal abundance” and related guffaws.
Usually the great investment opportunities turn out to be good for a few after the crash.
You have to sell now to make it successful. All of you!
Or watch your money walk away.
Decarbonise the planet, where do I sign up. I have some old monopoly money…….
For perspective, total GDP of earth is around $90 trillion.
[QUOTE FROM ARTICLE]”And there are a lot of reasons to be concerned that Western governments will run short of money over the next 30 years.” [END QUOTE]
Governments will never run out of money as long as there is a convenient central bank to print it for them. But if they try to raise taxes to finance $30 trillion of useless programs to combat climate change, citizens who don’t work for the government will run out of money.
This is happening in Australia right now.
And just one of the reasons that I’m going to be an expat of Oz as well as from the UK quite shortly. Luckily most of my investments are outside of Oz.
How about my new investment opportunity to sell oxygen to people who like to breath but only virgin air uncontaminated by Trumpish exhalations. Liberals will be all over that. Also I will develop a carbon capture anti-covid face mask in the colours of the rainbow made from recycled IPCC reports of doom.
First step is to convince people that it is in short supply or running out, then convince them you can deliver what they already have and get paid for doing so. Seems legit.
I think this is the best investment opportunity I’ve seen for a long while! 🙂
“Yellow Vest protests in Europe, which started as opposition to French efforts to introduce a climate fuel tax,“
Actually, no. The tax already exists. It has existed for some time and that’s the basis for the accusation used against the protesters: “they are inept, the tax existed and nobody complained”.
The tax existed but started low, was raised, and it didn’t matter that much when oil was pretty cheap.
I’ve had car salespersons tell me that buying a car was an investment.
When I ask for them to put in a guaranteed growth value line in the contract, they shut up.
Can’t wait until we pass through the infamous 1.5°C tipping point, and when nothing happens it will be interesting to see how creative the green Cultists will be in explaining the lack of doom.
This latest green mass hysteria where normally sane and rational business men start believing in the climate emergency with the furver of an old-time Jehovah’s Witness. But at least the JWs were smart enough to stop predicting the end of the world every ten years!
I think there’s money to be made in selling US coastal property to climate skeptics (as no one else will be buying it shortly). Oh, and former presidents.
The people who are buying coastal properties are the ones involved in scaring people off of buying coastal properties. I noticed David Suzuki has a nice property on the coast, as do so very many of the alarmist cultists. Now what do they all know that you don’t, eh Griffy?
That they plan on selling it on to you guys?
It makes no sense to buy coastal property in much of the USA.
‘Renewables’ are considerably more capital-intensive than conventional generation. It seems likely that the capital requirements for solar/wind plants, and their required battery or other backup, together with the capital needed for expanded mining operations to supply the materials, will have a significant upward impact on interest rates.
There is a serious rewriting of history in this article: Malcolm Turnbull succeeded Abbott as Prime Minister on 14 September 2015, so the Paris Agreement occurred on his watch, not Abbott’s.