Guest “You can’t fix stupid” by David Middleton
ESG AND GREEN BUSINESS
Giant global asset managers have $82 billion in coal projects, $468 billion in oil and gas
PUBLISHED WED, APR 20 2022Catherine Clifford
Giant global asset managers are still dumping tens of billions of dollars into new coal projects and hundreds of billions of dollars into major oil and gas companies.
That’s according to a report out Wednesday from Reclaim Finance, an organization disclosing financial sector investments in fossil fuels.
The report, titled “The Asset Managers Fueling Climate Chaos,” found that collectively 30 asset managers have $82 billion in companies developing new coal projects and $468 billion in 12 major oil and gas companies.
“Is the asset management industry changing its investment practices in line with climate science, reducing investments in coal, oil, or gas expansion? Unfortunately, the answer is an emphatic ‘no,’” Lara Cuvelier of Reclaim Finance said in a statement released alongside the report. “Leading asset managers are kicking the can down the road without even asking companies to stop worsening the climate crisis.”
[…]
CNBC
This bit is priceless…
“Is the asset management industry changing its investment practices in line with climate science, reducing investments in coal, oil, or gas expansion? Unfortunately, the answer is an emphatic ‘no,’” Lara Cuvelier of Reclaim Finance said in a statement released alongside the report. “Leading asset managers are kicking the can down the road without even asking companies to stop worsening the climate crisis.”
CNBC
How does someone get so stupid that they think asset management decisions should be based on climate “science”?
Reality isn’t based climate “science”
The EIA’s 2021 International Energy Outlook is also ignoring the climate “science”…
Note: Petroleum and other liquids includes biofuels
OCTOBER 6, 2021
EIA projects accelerating renewable consumption and steady liquid fuels growth to 2050Today we released our International Energy Outlook 2021 (IEO2021). In the IEO2021 Reference case, which assumes current laws and regulations, we project that strong economic growth and growing populations will drive increases in global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions and energy consumption through 2050. Much of the increase in energy consumption will be met with liquid fuels and renewable energy sources. Natural gas- and coal-fired generation technologies as well as the emerging use of batteries will also prompt increased consumption.
Some key findings of IEO2021 include:
If current policy and technology trends continue, global energy consumption and energy-related carbon dioxide emissions will increase through 2050 as a result of population and economic growth.
The industrial and transportation sectors will largely drive the increase in energy consumption. Electric vehicle sales will grow through 2050, causing the internal combustion engine fleet to peak in 2023 for countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and in 2038 globally. Despite this projected growth in electric vehicle sales, the continued growth in energy consumption will cause global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions to rise through 2050 according to our IEO2021 Reference case.[…]
Principal contributor: Michelle Bowman
EIA
As an “added bonus” EIA now forecasts that coal consumption for energy will exceed its alleged 2014 peak by 2043…
The also forecast that fossil fuels will continue to be the world’s dominant source of primary energy for many decades to come…
Thats a relief. Good to hear all of the nonsense from the Marxstream media about investment being greatly reduced is your typical Fake News.
Remember, children, the only reason wind and solar are not dominant is lack of faith. If you close your eyes, and wish real hard, renewables will work./s
But remember to click your heals together too.
Can’t afford shoes after the energy transition – though the emaciated skin and bones might make a half-decent noise if we can find the energy to stand up and strike them together.
Pass me the soylent green.
“…close your eyes, and wish real hard,…”
Well, to be fair you do have to click your heels three times.
But the political shaming of oil and gas extraction does have effects. Companies throughout the business have changed their emphasis away from growth, so that they can’t respond to $100 oil like last time.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-the-top-u-s-oil-field-a-battle-for-materials-crimps-growth-11651089832?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1
That’s not the result of “political shaming.” It’s the result of shareholder demands and industry hesitancy to make the same mistakes we made leading up to the 2014 crash.
Fool me once,
shame on you.
Fool me twice,
shame on me.
That’s good to hear. However, corporate fatcats giving lip-service to ESG and sustainability crap just gives the enemy a future win. Thin edge of the wedge, camel’s nose, etc.
Come back to us when shareholders have “… changed their emphasis away from growth …”
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but:
https://institutional.vanguard.com/iam/pdf/economics-of-climate-change.pdf
https://institutional.vanguard.com/VGApp/iip/site/institutional/researchcommentary/article/InvComJohnGallowayClimate
Can’t fix stupid.
Agreed— but the public absolutely must be made aware of the gargantuan (and largely unknown and invisible) corporate proxy voting power that lies in the hands of Vanguard, BlackRock, Fidelity, foundations, university endowments and state, local, municipal retirement systems.
It’s not just their proxy voting, it’s the threat of dumping a company’s shares if the
Board doesn’t adopt their policies, which will make their options worthless. If Elon
Musk hadn’t bought out Twitter, he could have used that same threat on Twitter.
The entire Board of Twitter owned something like 178 shares of stock. They had virtually zero skin in the game. That was pointed out in a Musk tweet.
They stood to get sued into oblivion buy shareholders and perhaps incur the wrath of the SEC if they rejected Musk’s generous buyout offer
After that tweet, miraculously the deal was hammered out and accepted as announced on Monday of this week.
Larry Fink (Blackrock) can use the threat of dumping stock to manipulate companies,
as that would make their options worthless. If Elon Musk hadn’t taken over Twitter, he
could have done the same thing to them!
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/01/24/will-the-real-larry-fink-please-stand-up/
Aaaaannnnd, sure enough – the totally impossible RCP8.5 gets to be a player again.
Which of course, is bad news turned up to 11 for the Klimate Kool-Aiders.
From your Vanguard links –
Anytime RCP8.5 is cited, it is a sure-fire sign of a failure to plumb the depths of the putative evidence purporting to underlie the “Catastrophic/dangerous, CO2-driven anthropogenic global warming/climate change” CONJECTURE.
John, I’m so overwhelmed by the ignorance and multitudinous lies expressed in your citations that I’m bookmarking them to respond over time. For now:
Vanguard bases its analysis on “consensus scientific climate change scenarios,” all of which have negative economic impacts. Nobel Prize recipient William Nordhaus has shown positive economic benefits for warming up to 3.5 C.
Government policies and subsidies enhancing investments in specific industries in no way reflect their economic benefits to the larger society.
The stupid interpretation that warmer climates are more adversely effected than cooler climates by global warming is contradicted by the fact that warmer climates are less impacted by warming average global temperatures than cooler climates. Our climate becomes more benign with warming.
John, you need to get a grip on the propaganda spewed by political and economic profiteers . They do not have your benefit in mind.
Please don’t shoot the messenger— I am deeply skeptical of the evidence-light “Catastrophic/dangerous, CO2-driven anthropogenic global warming/climate change” CONJECTURE
I put that post up solely for the purpose of making readers aware that large investment managers (e.g., Black Rock, Vanguard, Fidelity, Grantham Mayo Otterloo [“GMO”], CalPers, college and university endowments, state, local and municipal pension funds and eleemosynary foundations) continue to exercise and abuse their enormous corporate proxy voting power.
If you happen to be a Vanguard client/owner (as I am), you can and should communicate your objections to InvestmentStewardship@Vanguard.com (as I have).
When I first heard about investments in ESGs I went online to almost every investment plan I could think of and searched for ESG. All of them “offer” some investments with ESG focus. Then I contacted my plan – LPL which is Delaware ivy and I spoke with my plan portfolio manager about making sure that I’m not invested in any ESG related funds. It turns out I am not. I think it is almost impossible to find any investment fund companies that DO not have ESG offerings. But it doesn’t mean you have to have your money in those offerings.
ESGs are merely the latest in a long line of Wall Street gimmicks designed to separate fools from their money.
You’re wise to steer clear of them.
Recall that Vanguard is right in the forefront of the NWO… so…
John,
The Vanguard report isn’t that bad. They forecast a 2% to 4% drag on the economy by 2050 for small temperature rises, which is a bit pessimistic, but not that far off. Remember our current overall growth rate is about 3%/year (total growth in global wealth, 2020-2050 = 150%). Thus, the cost of 2-4% reduces our growth to 146% to 148%, it may not even be noticeable. Further, the “small temperature rises” may not happen, lots of researchers are forecasting no change in global temperatures before 2050. Only the very unlikely RCP8.5 scenario is possibly bad. The far more likely RCP4.5 scenario has virtually no impact. RCP8.5 has been falsified many times.
Spot on.
RCP8.5 is as close to physically impossible that a model can get.
It’s effectively fraudulent when they refer to a “2-4% drag on the economy” without clearly pointing out that it is a cumulative drag, as you clearly point out.
A lot of people probably think it’s a 2-4% annual drag on GDP.
The difference between 146% and 150% cumulative growth over 30 years isn’t even a rounding error. The 150% growth over 30 years is, at best, a SWAG and the 2-4% cumulative sag isn’t even a WAG.
Apply a realistic discount rate (7-10%) and all climate “investments” would have negligible, if not, negative NPV’s.
Precisely! The only person to do a decent economic analysis of the impact of climate change was William Nordhaus, and he won a Nobel Prize for stating the obvious, human-caused climate change doesn’t matter and all the climate change agreements have been failures.
I love this quote from Nordhaus:
Agreed. I’ve certainly seen worse. Nevertheless, Vanguard’s senior managers are located in the heart of Philadelphia’s Main Line and are subject to that area’s pervasive climate alarmist culture.
Jack Bogle founded the firm in 1979 and championed the deserved ascendancy of passively managed index funds. It now has something like $8 trillion under management and is the 2nd largest investment manager (neck and neck with the crooked, dishonest Larry Fink’s BlackRock).
I hate the thought of Bogle’s successors mindlessly going along with the crowd and using the firm’s gargantuan proxy voting power to coerce corporate compliance with the climate nuttery.
Andy May, FYI
Dow Jones Newswire report on Annual Shareholder Meeting of Berkshire Hathaway Corporation:
So stay away from Vanguard.
Vanguard has some unique (an overused and frequently incorrectly applied descriptor) aspects that make it singularly friendly to investors.
It is the ONLY mutual fund and investment management company that is owned by its customers. There is no 3rd party ownership. This unique structure eliminates many conflicts-of-interest that plague virtually every other investment company. Vanguard is not a brokerage and does not employ commissioned sales people. There are no commissions (and thus no incentive to encourage trading; in fact, Vanguard discourages trading by its clients). The lack of outside ownership permits Vanguard to compete on price (i.e., fees)— a fact that generally allows it to be the lowest cost provider of funds (of both actively-managed funds and passively managed index funds) and ETFs.
That’s the great thing about Capitalism. If you want to really know what people think, ignore what they say and look at what they do with their own money.
What about those that decide what to do with your money without your knowledge? Staring with governments, the list is endless.
I don’t think the picture is that rosy – eco-fascists have made capital harder to get for fuel companies – get used to high energy prices – a feature not a bug of the energy transition.
Please call “bull shit” on any politician that says the energy transition will save money and create jobs.
And now Bojo, Jobo and the EUrocrats have Putin they can blame for their own gross ineptitude and criminal negligence that has put their own citizens and the world’s poor in dire circumstances. Politicians never learn from their mistakes because they never accept responsibility.
Ironically, they are 100% responsible for what is developing into a Golden age of Coal. They’ve demonstrated to the Third World that solar and wind are total failures technically and economically.
Oh, I think the energy transition would create jobs. With no reliable energy sources to power agricultural equipment (not to mention no electrically powered agricultural equipment to power), mining equipment (see previous parenthetical), construction equipment, etc…there will be an enormous demand for back-breaking physical labor. With the current American crop of kids paid to stay at home and not work due to Covid, and its aversion (and inability) to perform such work, there may be a massive number of jobs created – but they will go unfilled, as they are now. I’m not sure that will change even in the face of mass starvation.
Any other data resource?
Seems like the coal predictions don’t make any sense and maybe a way to scare off investment.
I know Europe had planned to shut down coal fired plants and that would offset a little bit of the huge growth in Asia, but recent events mean even that offset will be gone.
There’s no way coal will provide less kwh/btus in 2030 than 2020. Complete green wank.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s projection for global ‘renewables’ (above) is impossible.
That is if by ‘renewables’ they mean wind and solar, of course given current government policies by 2050 many more people could be burning wood and dung.
David, in the graphs, is hydro included in ‘renewables’?
I’m fairly certain it is. When EIA excludes hydroelectric, it’s usually listed as non-hydroelectric renewables.
Renewables are the future, gas, oil, coal, hydro and nuclear, yes indeed, renewables are the future. Just follow the investment money, not the tax subsidies.
Just ask Berkshire Hathaway: Investments follow tax subsidies.
Do not mistake government-manipulated “markets” with free markets. FJB
Government manipulation of markets and industries has been going on a long time. The fact that individuals in government are never punuished for their criminal actions just makes it happen that much more.
Good for them, for us. With CC-22, follow the science, not the cargo cult.
“How does someone get so stupid that they think asset management decisions should be based on climate “science”?”
David, this is a poster example of néomarxiste reasoning that we see in their ‘scientific’ thinking and in every aspect of their world view. Indeed, it follows from their world view! One can safely say that it’s a view that’s out of this world.
This is why it’s okay to change empirical data to fit what they think it should be, to “Karlize” the Pause, to add a crustal rebound factor to sealevel (I.e. to add a volumetric factor to a linear measure so that their sealevel is actually standing above the actual water surface, to push the late 1930s -early 40s record 20th century temperatures down half a degree to have a hockey stick at the end of the century, to divide us into 7 or eight genders that can be interchanged.
What’s more, if you are a climate alarmist, you perforce must accept the whole whole package deal. That is why our most frequent antagonists here also argue all the other wokelore.
They’re not stupid. The end justifies the means. No lie is too small to tell. The goal is domination by people who know what’s best for you.
FIFY
Reclaim Finance discovers that financial asset managers pursue money through return on investment. At least they can take some comfort in knowing their restrictions on pipelines and drilling mean the financial asset managers make more money for every unit of fossil energy sold.
Some good news- Climatistas got shut out yesterday as three large banks’ shareholders voted to
reject their spiel-
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/04/climatistas-bank-heist-defeated.php
If the woke world is going to move closer to Net-Zero then it will require China to ramp up its production of solar panels and wind turbines. They require mountains of coal.
China is ramping up its own coal production and increasing imports to meet the growing demand.
Fairy farts could potentially power wokeful economies but making stuff requires real energy.
https://www.climatedepot.com/2022/03/15/china-plans-massive-increase-in-coal-mining/
That’s what’s so funny. Fossil fuels are absolutely essential if countries insist on going down the wind, solar, backup batteries and EV’s track. These ideologists are so convinced of the evils of fossil fuels that they want to ban their extraction.
They really do think that ‘clean’ energy comes from unicorn farts. I say cut out the middle man, as in renewable energy, and just use the source. Way to save the planet. But then, it’s not really about that is it?
This article makes no sense.
And the charts included have 30 years of speculation
(predictions) that may have no relationship with reality.
Stocks and bonds of fossil fuel companies have to be owned by someone.
Whether “someone” is the investment companies studied, or not, is irrelevant.
If there were many new issues of fossil fuel stocks and bonds,
asset companies refusing to buy them could make a difference.
But there are many other sources of new funds, from banks,
pension funds, hedge funds, private individual IRAa
and other private investment accounts.
If fossil fuel companies are unable to sell bonds, or borrow money
from banks, that would be important.
If there is an actual problem worth talking about,
it is that capital investments (capex) in US
oil and gas exploration and production peaked in 2014.
“If fossil fuel companies are unable to sell bonds, or borrow money
from banks, that would be important.”
It would most definitely be important, no fossil fuels no renewables.
In Australia we have a tv ad with a dancing prawn telling us how good it is that they are providing “carbon neutral” internet! What clowns
Is that what “coming the raw prawn” means?
I’d often wondered.
Very clever! Just to expand on that for clarity Disputin.
“Don’t come the raw prawn with me mate!”
Shame that Australian colloquialisms are disappearing, they’re quite colourful.
Yes, I’m sure it shuts down every time fossil fuel energy is included in the electron mix./sarc
Did they provide a list of these asset managers who are actively seeking high returns for their clients? I would like to get on board.
There are many people out there making decisions based on “climate science” – just not people whose careers depend on being right, or who will be accountable for the massive costs of being so wrong.
I feel for those whose Superannuation Funds are heavily invested in renewables. The crash is inevitable.