Essay by Eric Worrall
Members are ditching former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney’s Net Zero Asset Alliance, amidst claims of greenwashing and fears of legal exposure.
Pension fund Cbus quits Mark Carney’s green alliance
Alastair Marsh
Sep 26, 2022 – 9.38amLondon | Pension fund Cbus and Austrian pensions firm Bundespensionskasse have become the first institutions to leave a financial alliance on tackling climate change spearheaded by former Bank Of England governor Mark Carney.
Australia’s Cbus left the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance recently to focus on “internal climate change activities”, while Bundespensionskasse exited the Paris Aligned Asset Owners group last month. The coalitions form part of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) launched with much fanfare last year.
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Investors are increasingly impatient with evidence of potential “greenwashing” amid signs net-zero pledges made by some members of the financial industry are not credible, said former US vice president Al Gore.
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For some members, there’s a growing realisation that they may fail to meet the goals set out by the alliance, while others have expressed fear the organisation’s strict requirements for decarbonisation could make them legally vulnerable.
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Read more: https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/pension-fund-cbus-quits-mark-carney-s-green-alliance-20220926-p5bkxu
The fear of legal vulnerability is likely the real obstacle to progress of Carney’s Net Zero group. Investment managers have a fiduciary duty to protect the value of client’s investments, and Prime Minister Liz Truss’ open support for fracking has massively increased the risk for green investors.
The legal liability fear might also be a hangover of former HSBC Responsible Banking Head Stuart Kirk’s reveal all speech earlier this year, in which Kirk appeared to suggest Mark Carney was pressuring bankers like himself to use exaggerated model assumptions to pump the value of climate investments. I’m not accusing Carney of doing this, I may have misunderstood Kirk’s point, but deliberately manipulating models to present a false impression of value is a serious crime.
Correction (EW): h/t Rod Evans, Phillip Bratby – Former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney.
It almost makes me want to invest in an ESG fund.
Outperform the market, take your profit.
Underperform the market, sue the crap out of the underwriters, take your profit.
And who said you couldn’t have risk free investing!
I suspect it would be difficult to sue a fund which actually tells you they’re going to blow your money on woke cr@p.
Why? It’s been easy enough to due a company that sold you a diesel car because it emitted less CO2.
Eric, please note HSBC dumped Kirk and disavowed his analyses. I’m sure there are a surfeit of hungry lawyers out there ready and willing to pounce on the lying bankers when the fit hits the shan. The cognoscenti will never see it before the tsunami hits. Too much short-term money to be made, especially in bonuses.
I predict that “ramping” and “lift shafting” will enter into common usage, at least in the short/medium term – the demand to alter “assumptions” is a massive trap for managers of assets for other people in a fiduciary manner – a recipe for legal remedies if such managers eschew their very difficult responsibilities. Carney and Co are a “in plain sight” disaster – not surprising given he oversaw what I consider to be the biggest undeclared transfer of value in human history – the suppression of interest rates, abandonment of his “RPI + 2%” target of inflation control, and his manipulation of markets by pre-announcing that decisions on the destination of interest rates in an inflationary period might be happening in the short term only for there not to be any such thing for the post Lehman Bros years. Savers assets were diminished both by the lack of return on capital and then the double whammy of the diminution of real terms value of their capital due to endemic inflation; borrowers were given a truly massive and unprecedented financial advantage funded entirely by savers, many of pensionable age with no other option to replace the loss in value to their capital. A truly criminal conspiracy imho.
Carney’s evangelial belief in manmade climate change and the resulting end of the world does make one question why he was ever appointed the Governor of the Bank of England. .
I would suggest his evangelical belief in man made climate change stems from the fact he thinks it will make him a lot of money, although his wife, Diana, is something of an eco freak and used to run a green blog
Carney got lucky!
As governor of the Bank of Canada he was slow in de-regulating Canada’s home loan market in the early 2000’s and was being accused of hampering growth. The the crash hit in 2008 and suddenly he was called a genius because Canada suffered less than other countries. The fact that the plans were in place for exactly the same relaxing of loan rules and had just not been implemented didn’t seem to matter – he was revered as a prophet and could do no wrong, which got him the Bank of England job a few years later.
“but deliberately manipulating models to present a false impression of value is a serious crime.”
If only it were true for the climate scientist activists that are feeding this beast that is spiralling out of control, at least it seems to me.
This article is good news that we’re starting to see some push back, but the fat cats who run these banks, businesses, investment houses don’t seem to real clue in on the damage they are doing by going along with the climate emergency b.s.
<insert shaking head emoji here> A climate emergency that freaks out about the temperature a hundred years from now – better call 911 and hurry – the temps going up .005°C by the end of the year!!!!
I called my broker yesterday to tell him that if there’s a class-action regarding ESG and Asset Managers, that I would join such a group.
One way of judging the merit of a portfolio’s ESG credentials, especially and index tracking ETF is to obtain the list of holdings and filter for Pharmaceutical stocks – prepare to be angered if “it” holds Moderna, J&J, Pfizer and others involved in SARS COV2 mRNA gene editing therapeutics ….then ask the question “How do you filter stocks for a history of criminality evidenced by historic fines imposed after legal due process?” – you might not get a satisfactory answer….
That might illustrate the utter scale of corruption that characterises “ESG”, imho of course.
Class-action would be a grass roots movement. I have no idea if I’m the only one threatening my broker or if I have company. Any way, I’ve sent the message that I don’t approve of asset managers bullying corporations into making bad investments for their shareholders.
Don’t tell me anyone can still believe that charlatan Al Gore. Every prediction he has ever made has been wrong (unless it lines his pocket).
Al Gore was the first and, imho, the greatest of the greenwashers. His films, paid appearances and environmental lobbying were all geared towards pushing the USA and then the world into a green cap and trade system where he was poised to make huge amounts of money from trading. For him to call out others for greenwashing is the ultimate level of hypocrisy.
He should be “ex- Bank of England Governor Mark Carney”. A man ignorant of science.
He is the former Bank of England Governor.
Now he’s vice chairman and head of Impact Investing at Brookfield Asset Management, a company benefiting from the decisions he made as Governor.
I always regarded Mark Carney as a climate alarmist who did a second job as a banker which he used to spread his alarmist drivel.
Another man driven by the politics of his wife.
He was recycled to the Bank of England from the Bank of Canada after Canada was the only G7 country that didn’t have a financial meltdown. Conservative prime minister Harper (an economist) outraged European heads by lecturing them on how to manage their economies properly! It seems UK at least listened. However, Carney seems to have left good sense behind and was corrupted by celebrity status among empty heads in European Institutions.
Thanks Phillip 🙂
repeat ….. go woke
Carney was the Bank of England Governor, he no longer holds that position. He was wrong on so many fundamental policies while he was in office particularly around the ‘Brexit’ debate he became a standing joke character in the City,
It would be more accurate to describe him as a Canadian. He is part of the woke WEF placemen that featured in the recent UK establishment. Clegg, May, and too many others to name all played a part in resisting the will of the people.
Carney’s only skill set is he is connected to others like him.
I will leave it at that.
Thanks Rod!
“Carney’s only skill set is he is connected to others like him.”
– Rod Evans
I am NOT a fan of Mark Carney. Before he was Governor of the Bank of England, he was Governor of the Bank of Canada. He was clearly groomed by the woke-left establishment to rise to prominent positions, but his alleged accomplishments were done by others. Some of that is described below.
The economy of Canada was hugely revitalized by improvements to the Alberta oil sands industry that I primarily initiated in the mid-late 1980’s, which were fully enacted in the 1990’s: These were new Tax terms (initiated in 1985), greatly reduced unit operating costs (1985), and new Royalty terms (1988). See https://energy-experts-international.com/
The politicians that were most responsible for these major improvements were Prime Minister Jean Chretien, MP Anne McLellan, and Alberta Premier Ralph Klein. To my knowledge, Mark Carney had nothing to do with them.
Some of those who were actually involved in these achievements are listed in my comment here:
HOW CANADA BECAME THE 4TH LARGEST OIL PRODUCER IN THE WORLD.
More details below.
Pierre Poilievre vs Mark Carney: A heated exchange on pipelines – YouTube
Mark Carney rode the wave of my/our achievements in the oil sands that built his career, but he did little to actually help Canada.
I am primarily responsible for three of the four major initiatives that turned-around the Alberta oil sands industry. These initiatives were new Income Tax and Crown Royalty terms, and increased production at Syncrude that reduced operating costs from $18 to $12 per barrel. The fourth major contribution was SAGD technology, initiated by others. I incorporated these initiatives into a Strategic Plan for Syncrude that was adopted and made Canada the 4th largest oil producer in the world. Canada became the largest foreign energy supplier to the USA and the strongest economy in the G8 countries. Investments in the oilsands exceeded $250 billion and over 500,000 jobs were created across Canada. The successful careers of Stephen Harper, Ralph Klein, Mark Carney and many others were enabled through my efforts.
Since I moved away from the Canadian petroleum industry in 1996, little of substance has been accomplished that these four achievements did not initiate. Much-needed oil pipelines were blocked and even Stephen Harper and colleagues sleep-walked through this decade+ debacle, riding on the success of the past achievements of others but doing little to add value during their years in power. If our politicians had been competent, they would have forced through the Energy East pipeline, another oil pipeline to the West Coast, and pipelines such as Keystone XL to move our oil to Houston. These are monumental failures by politicians and industry that are now being swept under the rug. They should have done much better and Canada and the USA would be much more secure and prosperous.
Mr Carnage.
UK current account data for Q2 2022 is due out in a couple of days. That may have some interesting numbers as it will reflect energy prices post the Putin expansion.
The GBP hit a new low against the USD yesterday. Even the little Aussie battler looks good against the GBP. It was only a couple of decades ago that a GBP1 would buy AUD3. Now it is down to AUD1.66.
GBP1 buys RUB62.9. That is a big fall from RUB179 in March.
UK energy transition to NutZero appears to be on unstable foundations. Or more precisely based on climate models that have less value than chook poo.
With a cheap Pound and fracked gas on the way, courtesy of Ms Truss, the UK is getting set for a major industrial and economic makeover.
I just hope she can stay the course, if this really is her plan. That she’s taking fire from all sides seems significant but we’ll have to see what happens.
Sam – we have a near-term problem, as I wrote today to the leaders of Britain’s Global Warming Policy Foundation:
The British conundrum is that it’s too late. This winter is expected to be cold and there is insufficient energy (outside of Russia) to prevent a human catastrophe, as we predicted in 2002, 2013 and this July.
Good News: 2022 Hurricane Season Mild. Bad News: PRESSURE PATTERN THREATENS EUROPE WITH HELL WINTER (notrickszone.com)
I AGREE WITH THIS FORECAST – ENERGY SHORTAGES AND A COLD WINTER – TOLD YOU SO 20 YEARS AGO – DETAILS AT:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/09/17/open-thread-35/#comment-3603080
[excerpt]
THE BIG CULL OF THE ELDERLY OF EUROPE WILL HAPPEN THIS WINTER
By Allan MacRae, 28July2022
We predicted it in 2002 and 2013 – it was all terribly costly – in dollars and lives – and all entirely avoidable.
A willful squandering of the lives of innocents.
Crimes against humanity.
Regards, Allan MacRae in Calgary
Post Script:
It is theoretically possible for the UK government to develop an emergency plan that will keep people warm, but at their current glacial rate this is unlikely to happen.
The deaths of the elderly will be blamed on Covid.
The UK excess deaths of 2014/15 ( I think) were blamed, by leftists, on Tory austerity rather than the pneumonia virus that swept across Europe that winter, despite ample evidence that the UK excess deaths were fewer than in other EU countries. With this in mind, I have no doubts that this years’ deaths will be blamed on Covid, Truss, Kwarteng or any convenient scapegoat rather than the real culprit.
See England and Wales Excess Winter Deaths (EWD) data here:
Excess winter mortality in England and Wales Statistical bulletins – Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)
See Winter 2020-2021 WED Report here – huge jump in EWD to 63,000 attributed to Covid-19 – I say that jump was primarily due to the toxic Covid-19 vaccines deployed in early 2021, not the virus.
Look at Winter 2019-2020 in Figure 1 – 10,320 EWD – the first Covid-19 Winter, with very low EWD before the vaccines were deployed.
Not too difficult to analyze, is it? Told you so, 21Mar2020.
See CorrectPredictions.ca
Excess winter mortality in England and Wales – Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk) 2020 to 2021
PUTIN’S CALLING THE ‘UNPRECEDENTED SABOTAGE’ OF THE NORD STREAM PIPELINE AN ‘ACT OF INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM’ (MSN.COM)
This is most unfortunate and greatly limits the ability of Britain, Germany and other countries to develop emergency plans to save their elderly and poor this winter.
Fowl or fool, Rick, you nailed it.
What does this mean?
The Chilli CON Carney doesn’t agree with them!
It probably means they are now claiming that they are going to do the same things in private as they were going to do more transparently as part of the organisation.
I would guess the real meaning is that they are simply abandoning it, but don’t wan’t to say so in public. If they take it internal then nobody will see it being killed off.
“”net-zero pledges made by some members of the financial industry are not credible””
Net zero is impossible. None of it is credible
And not just the finance industry. In the UK the national supermarket chain Sainsbury’s rolled back “Net Zero…” to “Net Zero in our own operations.”
They may, or may not, have fully realised that the thing is unachievable, but are clearly aware that it is going to fail at some point in the supply chain. Thus they are already washing their hands of the failures they know are coming. Whether or not they are naive enough to think they can do their part, they don’t intend to be the first ones to not meet promises.
Well, it IS possible – it’s called “The Stone Age.” If people are willing to embrace that standard of living (and dying, for many), then “net zero” emissions are indeed possible.
Aka a “Pyrrhic Victory.”
While investors are pulling back from Nut Zero, Brandon’s pushing it
as much as he can since he may consider Algore or Kerry to replace the
current World Bank president, David Malpass, for not pursuing climate
change policies with sufficient zeal. When asked “whether he affirms
that the “man-made burning of fossil fuels is rapidly and dangerously
warming the planet”, Malpass reportedly said: “I don’t even know. I’m
not a scientist.”” Given the current global crisis caused by unreliable
RE, Brandon’s committed to being an “equal opportunity destroyer”.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-may-try-to-fire-world-bank-president-for-not-pushing-climate-policy-enough-possible-replacement-chimes-in-report
https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2022/09/25/wsj-prints-blistering-editorial-ripping-gore-kerry-for-bullying-world-bank-with-insane-climate-demands-n632862
From the Daily Wire article cited above:
“Top administration officials, including Energy Secretary Jennifer
Granholm, have argued that “the only way” out of “boom-and-bust
cycles” in energy prices is “deploying clean energy.”
“The real truth is that as long as our nation remains overly
reliant on oil and fossil fuels, we will feel these price shocks
again,” Granholm said at a June press briefing. “This is not
going to be the last time. The next time there’s a war, the
next time there’s a pandemic or another hurricane, these
extreme weather events we are experiencing— they will impact
the access that we have to fossil fuels.””
It must be nice living in the magical world of “clean energy”
where it isn’t constrained by the laws of supply & demand,
where it always generates all the energy you need 100% of the
time & its grid & components never wear out & are totally
indestructible. Granholm’s making AOC sound like a genius!
Has she looked at the global supply chain for wind turbines and solar panels? Is she even vaguely half aware of the sabre rattling over Taiwan? Has she noticed all those typhoons in Asia, interrupting shipping?
Every argument she makes is trumped by her own folly and blindness. Is she working for China?
I doubt the Chinese would be foolish enough to pay her, she’s a complete liability not an asset. I see her as the kind of idiot that needs to fit in with a group by outdoing and going further than the others but who doesn’t have a clue what the consequences will be.
I liked the bit where she said
“The next time there’s a war […] they will impact
the access that we have to fossil fuels.”
I’m almost speechless.
Since her beloved dirty-posing-as-clean “energy” is 100% fossil fuel dependent, AND requires 100% backup BY fossil fuels, her “solution” to the price volatility CAUSED BY STUPID CLIMATE POLICIES TO BEGIN WITH would make matters MUCH WORSE, not better.
The extent of their delusion and magical thinking is astounding.
It’s very straightforward. If you invest in a myth without checking, then it’s your fault. But false prospectuses are actionable. Does the Carney ‘language’ protect itself against that?
Better stick with slave labor Chinese solar…
Solar Panels Piling Up in Warehouses in Energy-Starved Europe (yahoo.com)
Funny that the Bloomberg News article does not talk about all toxic waste generated by mining the raw materials for the panels and manufacturing them. Is all that toxic waste green?
They also do not explain what is to be done with them at the end of their useful lives—how to dispose of them in an environmentally friendly manner.
Also no word about how the majority of panels are likely made in China. Is it any better for Europe to be dependent on Chinese solar panels than it was on Russian natural gas? Inquiring mind s want to know.
Inquiring minds also want to know how much energy it takes to produce, install, maintain and dispose of the panels, how much energy they will produce WHEN NEEDED over their shorter-than-promised life span, and what keeps the lights on when the panels aren’t producing anything, or much.
He soooo reminds me of Robbie Williams, of ‘Take That’ fame.
Here’s something relevant:
(watch me) Come Undone
Better stick with real estate scams….
Amphibious houses, Oceanix’s floating city adapt to sea-level rise (cnbc.com)
“I’m not accusing Carney of doing this, I may have misunderstood Kirk’s point, but deliberately manipulating models to present a false impression of value is a serious crime.”
**************
Deliberately manipulating models to present a false impression of a lot of things should be a crime. Climate models should be just the beginning.
Models are made to test the parameters of a hypothesis. Climate models can’t be lab bench tested, so it probably takes 3 or 4 thirty year periods, so around a century to see if their predictions are reasonable or just an artifact of setting parameters using historical anomalies. Carney should know this from experience with economic models…likely this implies he has a desire to use the CC narrative to control the economy rather than the economy to control CC.
This could not happen to a nicer man when the rats start jumping ship. 😉
I thought it had been forecast that Al Gore would be extinct by now or down to a single mansion.
I don’t see what is in it for ESG, Carney, BlackRock, et al. in blacklisting investment in oil and gas. OK, they then push green investments but none of that is new. Am I missing something here? Why are the mega rich bothering about this?
I do see that State attorney’s don’t like big corporations banning oil and gas investments because that’s their job. Narrowing consumer choice violates anti-trust laws.
Of course, there are real reasons such as oil and gas are much better at keeping the lights on but I’m sure that has nothing to do with it. Can anyone enlighten me?
It’s a “pump and dump” scam – as long as governments continue to squander tax money on ‘green energy scams, there’s reward in “investing” in them (aka trough feeding). Once subsidies and mandates get pulled, they’ll be positioned to buy oil, gas and coal stocks on the cheap for another quick windfall.
Given that ESG is epistemological mush and a one way ticket to green fascism and net zero, a delusional political construct and only obtainable in depopulated pre-industrial squalor, how can such institutionalized dystopia not be considered fraudulent.
“fear the organisation’s strict requirements for decarbonisation could make them legally vulnerable”.
Interesting that managers of funds didn’t appear to think about the only duty that they have, until theTexas’s Attorney General and a few others in the US reminded them of this singular duty and the certitude that there would be class action suits if they frittered away pension funds, etc. seeking other objectives than fund growth.
Like other sectors (divestment of fossil fuels, the auto industry, unreliable electrical grids, degradation of agriculture…) abused by the totalitarians, boilerplate laws must be passed to protect sectors that impact very negatively on the wellbeing of citizens. Even the Constitution needs boilerplate, needs redefinition of treason, strengthening of foreign agents laws, extra-territorial jurisdiction controls….
We didn’t need to support common sense aspects before, but now we do. No uprooting changes to infrastructural sectors should be allowed without high grade, in depth feasibility studies and demonstration projects to support them. Frivolous, ideological, activist, interference against permitted projects like pipelines, fossil fuel and nuclear power plants should be prevented by law and enforced. You can protest all you like. Your comments and studies are welcome during pre-permiting consultation, but citizens-at-large should not be held hostage by a minority of anti-development troublemakers.
I prefer Art Carney. 😉
Rats abandoning a sinking ship?
When will man learn, that attempts to build an empire will always fail?
good god please help us see and follow truth … co2 is to plants what air is to us humans … basic science