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Private Equity Firms Ploughing Billions Into Fossil Fuels, Analysis Reveals (theguardian.com) 100

Posted by msmash from the follow-the-money dept.
Private equity firms are using US public sector workers' retirement savings to fund fossil fuel projects pumping more than a billion tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere every year, according to an analysis. From a report: They have ploughed more than $1tn into the energy sector since 2010, often buying into old and new fossil fuel projects and, thanks to exemptions from many financial disclosures, operating them outside the public eye, the researchers say. In many cases they are mortgaging workers' futures by taking the money they have put away for old age and investing it in assets that risk serious damage to the climate, the report claims.

"Public sector workers' money, through national, state, and retirement pensions, provides much of the capital for private equity firms' energy investments, but there is limited disclosure to the pension fund managers that the deferred earnings of their beneficiaries have potential climate impacts," it says. Researchers at Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund, Global Energy Monitor and Private Equity Stakeholder Project assessed the holdings of 21 private equity firms, overseeing a combined $6tn in assets under management. Together, the analysis found that the 21 firms were funding projects responsible for releasing more than 1.17bn tons of CO2 equivalent (tCO2e) a year.
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Private Equity Firms Ploughing Billions Into Fossil Fuels, Analysis Reveals More

Private Equity Firms Ploughing Billions Into Fossil Fuels, Analysis Reveals

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  • They Work (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Paul Neubauer ( 86753 ) on Thursday October 03, 2024 @08:19AM (#64836619)

    There's a reason to invest in Things That Work.
    Yeah "renewables" are cool.... but most should be called "unreliables."
    They NEED the backups. The "renewable" backup is HYDRO.
    NUCLEAR would be good, too - a decent breeder reactor setup would be great!
    But failing that, it's still down to carbon to deal with the load.
    It might not be what many want to hear, but plugging ears changes NOTHING.
    I am NOT saying "petrochemicals/coal forever" but... recognize that even in a transition away from them, we'll need them for a while.
    I'd LOVE to be able to rely on non-carbon sources... alas, we are NOT there yet - and not even close.

    • Re:They Work (Score:5, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Thursday October 03, 2024 @08:45AM (#64836675) Homepage Journal

      Renewables get more reliable the more of them you have. The current gen offshore wind farms are starting to rival nuclear for reliability in Europe. Exceeding it in some cases, due to not having so many single points of failure.

      But that's besides the point. Fossil fuels are causing problems, and we need to get off them as soon as possible. If they are looking like good investments, then clearly the system has failed to properly price them. Costs must be getting externalized.

      • > Costs must be getting externalized

        That would be the cost of artificial sequestration to extract the released carbon from the atmosphere. It's a huge expense that we're just ignoring.

        When hydrocarbons are pulled out of the ground, they should be taxed not just to recover the carbon afterwards, but more on top of that to cover the removal of the last ~100 years of unfettered CO2 release.

        Do that and you'll get the true market price on oil.

        • Do that and you'll get the true market price on oil.

          Given the world's disparities in wealth, its not clear raising the price will lower emissions very much. Bill Gates would still fly around in his private jet and heat and cool his mansions. While Gates is an extreme version, there are a lot of people who just aren't all that price conscious and they account for the lion's share of emissions. Gates will pay the extra cost to get the landscapers out to his house in the country. The emissions from the landscaper are really part of Gates footprint. The "market"

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by q_e_t ( 5104099 )

            there are a lot of people who just aren't all that price conscious and they account for the lion's share of emissions

            It's people in developed countries that are responsible from most from air and car travel and a lot seem to complain when gasoline goes up to north of $3/gallon, so I would say that a lot of people in developed countries are quite price conscious.

            • would say that a lot of people in developed countries are quite price conscious.

              But they aren't the ones driving emissions. If Bill Gates is willing to pay the cost, the landscape contractor may complain about the cost of gas but he is still going to drive out to Bill Gates mansion. Even in the United States, there aren't all that many people who decide not to drive to work because of gas prices. We aren't going to get to carbon neutral if those are the only people changing their behavior.

              • The impact of billionaires is negligible in the full scope of the problem. They're a convenient target, but they don't contribute that much because as much as they contribute on an individual basis, there aren't enough of them. And as for Bill Gates in particular, he says he is carbon negative [euronews.com] , by spending millions annually on direct air capture to more than offset his footprint.

                there aren't all that many people who decide not to drive to work because of gas prices

                Nonsense. High gas prices cause people to do a lot of things to reduce their consumption. They buy smaller, more efficient ca

                • I am not talking about "billionaires". Bill Gates is an extreme example, but the distribution of emission footprint largely tracks wealth. And the distribution of the world's wealth is highly concentrated in 10% or less of the population. Do some people make choices based on gas prices? Yes, but they don't amount to much net reduction in emissions on a world scale.

                  As for Bill Gates being "carbon negative", he accomplishes that theoretical result by ignoring the emissions associated with his wealth. Instead

                  • As for Bill Gates being "carbon negative", he accomplishes that theoretical result by ignoring the emissions associated with his wealth. Instead he takes credit when one of his investments helps someone else reduce their emissions. And he pretends the money he pays for "carbon offsets" had no emissions in its creation and that the receiver will spend it in a way that has no emissions. Its a phony argument to justify a lavish lifestyle while pontificating on climate change.

                    You didn't read the linked article. He could be lying, but he says he specifically pays for atmospheric carbon capture to exceed his estimated emissions.

                    • How many of his estimated emissions come from Microsoft and his other investments and the emissions from the use of their products? My guess is that he does not include a share of his investments' emissions at all. Nor the emission footprint of their employees or his own that is related to the work they do. We could eliminate everybody's personal emissions footprint, which is really the CO2 from breathing, and we would still have a climate crisis.

                • Nonsense. High gas prices cause people to do a lot of things to reduce their consumption. They buy smaller, more efficient cars, maybe hybrids, maybe even EVs. They move closer to the office, or get a job closer to home. They work from home if possible, even if only a few days per week. Where feasible (not many places in the US), they even switch to transit. If gas prices doubled, or tripled, I think you'd see transit ridership increase significantly wherever it works, which would in turn enable it to be im

                  • Nonsense. High gas prices cause people to do a lot of things to reduce their consumption. They buy smaller, more efficient cars, maybe hybrids, maybe even EVs. They move closer to the office, or get a job closer to home. They work from home if possible, even if only a few days per week. Where feasible (not many places in the US), they even switch to transit. If gas prices doubled, or tripled, I think you'd see transit ridership increase significantly wherever it works, which would in turn enable it to be improved and extended to cover more areas.

                    You'd also see the US economy TANK and inflation go even higher than it already is....

                    You're only thinking of people driving to work, etc....you're neglecting the transportation of everything the US sells and consumes...food, clothes, etc....everything has to be transported and you'd kill us if you raised fuel prices.

                    We depend on a whole lot of truck out there, you know, the 18-wheeler types?

                    And due to size and loads they carry...EV doesn't quite work out for that....

                    That's nothing compared to the economic impact we're going to suffer from the climate wars and refugees.

                    • That's nothing compared to the economic impact we're going to suffer from the climate wars and refugees.

                      By the time that happens, I'll be LONG dead and buried taking a dirt nap and likely won't care too much.

                      I figure it will be SO far into the future that no one will really remember who I am or what the world was like now to curse my name or those of anyone alive now or 100+ years from now.

                    • This. If it gets without a doubt out of hand, there will be people that kill off the population, if it's not happening already. Fewer people = fewer cars. AI has already proven we need fewer jobs and once robots are ready for prime time, even fewer. Most people will be out of work in the next 20 years and living on UBI or the government, so they will be a burden to the ones actually bringing in income. People will get tired of it and they will be expendable as they contribute nothing to the economy.

                      Person

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
                Attributing the emissions of Bill Gates' landscaper only makes sense if, without Bill Gates, the gardener had a zero footprint. You could possibly attribute to Gates what the landscaper might create over and above working more regular landscaping jobs. That's hard to do. It's why determining what the embedded carbon footprint of a product is - it's really hard to know what is directly attributable. It's why you often see different amounts due to different estimates of what those additional emissions are, or

                • Attributing the emissions of Bill Gates' landscaper only makes sense if, without Bill Gates, the gardener had a zero footprint.

                  Why? Gates is getting the benefit, why isn't it his footprint? And yes, you would attribute the other landscape jobs to those customers. I agree with you that the whole process of attributing carbon footprints to individuals is difficult to impossible. But its actually pretty easy to say that if Bill Gates didn't have a landscaper, didn't heat and cool multiple mansions and didn't fly around in a private jet there would be less emissions. The "personal footprint" shtick is a way for Gates to duck that reali

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by XXongo ( 3986865 )

            Given the world's disparities in wealth, its not clear raising the price will lower emissions very much. Bill Gates would still fly around in his private jet and heat and cool his mansions.

            True, but when you run the numbers, the number of billionaires is so small that it really doesn't make a large difference. The carbon dioxide being put into the atmosphere is being driven primarily by the large number of less-wealthy people, not the small number of ultra-rich.

            "What about the ultra-rich!" is primarily whataboutism that people use to deflect having it pointed out that we are all responsible.

            ...The "market" is not going to get us to an emission free future, to the contrary it is going to do everything possible to prevent it.

            The "market" doesn't solve all problems, but it would nevertheless help to make people pay the cost o

            • it would nevertheless help to make people pay the cost of the damage caused by their actions.

              Which is why its so popular with people who can afford to pay. They can easily pay to avoid any inconvenience and go right on dumping emissions. Bill Gates is an extreme example. There are plenty of upper middle class people paying to drive their SOV in the HOV lane.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by XXongo ( 3986865 )
                As I said, the number of billionaires is small enough that even though their individual emissions are large compared to the average human on Earth, they aren't the main source of the problem.

                However, a corporation that puts millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere would find it to their advantage to find ways to reduce this.

                • However, a corporation that puts millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere would find it to their advantage to find ways to reduce this.

                  Or they will pass the cost on to their customers. Which they choose to do will depend on which is more profitable. That depends on what their customer's alternatives are and the return on alternative investments they might make with the money they have to spend to reduce emissions. As I said, there is no doubt that raising the price will have some effect on p

                  • Let me give you an example of how this might actually work using air travel. There is no apparent low emission alternative to air travel. There are some ideas how it might happen but none that are anywhere close to being a reality. So if you raised the cost of emissions, the cost of air travel will go up. Those who are price conscious will fly less. And, presumably, the number of flights will decline. Mission accomplished.

                    Or not. Because eventually the people who are price conscious will stop being a signif

                  • Re: (Score:2)

                    by XXongo ( 3986865 )

                    However, a corporation that puts millions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere would find it to their advantage to find ways to reduce this.

                    Or they will pass the cost on to their customers.

                    Pricing is a tool by which one can make trade-offs between different kinds of things. In particular, by making people (and corporations) who use energy pay for the cost to others of their use of energy (known as "externalities" in economics language), they can make a trade-off about the benefit gained by using the energy against the (negative) externalities. If they raise the cost, some customers will drop out-- this is known as the cost/demand curve-- these are the customers for whom the benefit is less th

        • When hydrocarbons are pulled out of the ground, they should be taxed not just to recover the carbon afterwards, but more on top of that to cover the removal of the last ~100 years of unfettered CO2 release.

          Do that and you'll get the true market price on oil.

          It will also get you quickly unelected and removed from office.

      • Renewables get more reliable the more of them you have. The current gen offshore wind farms are starting to rival nuclear for reliability in Europe. Exceeding it in some cases, due to not having so many single points of failure.

        The mechanics may be highly reliable but the wind they need to generate power is much less so. Worse, it is correlated over large areas so when there are calm conditions a large area of farms will be affected. I think this is what the OP was refering to as "reliable".

        The only effective solution to this is large battery storage which adds huge costs to renewable power. The one option that the OP does not mention is tidal power that has typically short and very predictable periods when it cannot generate

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Over a large area, like the North Sea, there is enough energy for the UK all the time. It never drops below what we consume. It's just a question of harvesting it.

          Battery isn't the only form of storage either. They are building massive pumped storage facilities up in Scotland.

          • Over a large area, like the North Sea, there is enough energy for the UK all the time.

            Not when you factor in the practical limitations of current technology and, since the North Sea is not owned by just the UK, you also need to factor in the power requirements of Norway, Denmark, Netherlands etc. Current wind turbines have both a miniumum and maximum wind speed in which they can operate. There is also a high degree of correlation to wind speed in the North Sea: see this study [nature.com] from Norway on the problems of correlations between North Sea windfarms. They show significant correlations (>50%

      • The current gen offshore wind farms are starting to rival nuclear for reliability in Europe.

        That has fuck all to do with the US tho...

        And, while I'll agree we need to be pushing to get more renewables AND nuclear energy going in the US, we aren't even close yet...so, you gotta keep going with what works till you can build up alternate sources.

        Hmm..when's the last time a new nuke facility was actually built in the US...?

    • Re:They Work (Score:5, Insightful)

      by danskal ( 878841 ) on Thursday October 03, 2024 @08:46AM (#64836679)

      > There's a reason to invest in Things That Work.
      > Yeah "horseless carriages" are cool.... but most should be called "unreliables."
      > They NEED the horses as a backup. The "horseless" backup is STEAM.
      > It might not be what many want to hear, but plugging ears changes NOTHING.
      > I am NOT saying "horsepower forever" but... recognize that even in a transition away from them, we'll need them for a while.
      > I'd LOVE to be able to rely on non-equine sources... alas, we are NOT there yet - and not even close.

      There's no need to be such a Luddite. Plenty of countries are going to 100% renewables. Batteries are so cheap and so EFFECTIVE that they can fully replace and improve on the performance of peaker plants, both in physical performance and financial.
      It might not be what you want to hear, but plugging ears changes NOTHING.

      The world is going renewable - the world HAS to go renewable. Because fossils are not renewable, they'll run out, and destroy us on their way out the door.

      We are seeing the first effects in storms, droughts, wildfires, floods. No need to go down that road - renewables are cheap and abundant.

      • ...Batteries are so cheap and so EFFECTIVE that they can fully replace and improve on the performance of peaker plants, both in physical performance and financial.

        Not yet, I'm afraid-- twelve to eighteen hours of battery storage, at the gigawatt level, is still outrageously expensive-- but battery technology is improving rapidly, and this is a reasonable projection for the next decade.

        So: keep doing that research and that technology development, friends.

        • ...Batteries are so cheap and so EFFECTIVE that they can fully replace and improve on the performance of peaker plants, both in physical performance and financial.

          Not yet, I'm afraid-- twelve to eighteen hours of battery storage, at the gigawatt level, is still outrageously expensive

          Note that the comparison was with peaker plants, and you don't need 12-18 hours of storage for that, you only need a couple of hours -- often only a few minutes.

          Getting to where batteries can cover the base loads overnight, etc., requires the 12-ish hours of storage and, yes, that's a lot tougher. Winter is another challenge, but that likely won't be solved so much by battery deployment as overprovisioning and diversification. One of the results lf that will be times of the year when we have enormous ov

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by XXongo ( 3986865 )

            Not yet, I'm afraid-- twelve to eighteen hours of battery storage, at the gigawatt level, is still outrageously expensive

            Note that the comparison was with peaker plants, and you don't need 12-18 hours of storage for that, you only need a couple of hours -- often only a few minutes.

            Indeed, for the specific reply I was replying to. But back to the main the topic, the discussion was about "Private Equity Firms Ploughing Billions Into Fossil Fuels," and if fossil fuels are to be eliminated beause battery storage is better, then you need 12-18 hours of storage.

            Getting to where batteries can cover the base loads overnight, etc., requires the 12-ish hours of storage and, yes, that's a lot tougher. Winter is another challenge, but that likely won't be solved so much by battery deployment as overprovisioning and diversification. One of the results lf that will be times of the year when we have enormous overproduction, well beyond what we can likely store in batteries, or in cheaper but less convenient energy storage solutions, or even reasonably transmit elsewhere. I suspect we'll find lots of things to do with that "free" energy, things that are hard to justify unless the energy is free, though I don't know what they are. (Hopefully we won't waste it on crypto mining. Probably some of that, sadly.)

            No disagreement here.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by tragedy ( 27079 )

            I suspect we'll find lots of things to do with that "free" energy, things that are hard to justify unless the energy is free, though I don't know what they are.

            I would say the best thing to do with it is to build up a stockpile of carbon-neutral fuel. This could take many forms. We could combine atmospheric CO2 and water and make methane and store it. Or there are other chemical ways to store power aside from batteries, such as powdered aluminum. You can simply burn it, or you could use it to fuel a battery-like fuel cell. There are other possibilities like pressurizing underground caverns, etc. so you can draw power from the pressure later, but those have storage

    • Re:They Work (Score:5, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Thursday October 03, 2024 @08:47AM (#64836685) Homepage Journal

      There's a reason to invest in Things That Work.

      Things that work in the long term, right?
      Right?

      Selling out the future for shiny shiny today is unsustainable by definition.

      • But we need quarterly profit! Poor things only have billions in assets. When can we fill the streets and come for these fuckers? They manipulate the market and in turn really fuck up my 401k and other investments. My thousands... Hopefully I will retire into a "good" economy. If not, maybe vigilante justice will be a cool way to retire.

  • Strange take (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ejaytee ( 186527 ) on Thursday October 03, 2024 @08:23AM (#64836631)

    The source of funding for the fossil fuel industry is not private equity. It's all of us. It is everybody that drives a gas/petrol vehicle, heats their home with natural gas, or consumes hydrocarbons in any of the ways that they power our economies. This article is a stupid attempt to cluck and shame entities that provide capital to business that are satisfying a demand that we all help to create.

    PE is also one of the largest funders of utility-scale solar and wind projects in the developed and developing world.

    • I rate it as... So what?

      Public employee pension managers financial responsibility is only to the people who pay into those pensions, not whiny elitists. They invest money solely to fund the retirements of their members. If virtue signalers want it to change, I suggest they improve ROI on their preferred projects and quit trying to shame the money managers who are working to support retirees on fixed incomes.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HBI ( 10338492 )

        This kind of shaming is what you do when you know you are losing in the marketplace.

        Ironically, there is a profit motive here also, driving the media coverage. Everything has to do with money. Anyone believing that virtue has anything to do with this is not worth listening to.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by whitroth ( 9367 )

        So, I take it you don't live where Helene came through. Here's hoping the next one comes over your head.

        And what option would someone with a 401k have to tell the fund managers not to invest in fossil fuels? The most I ever saw was how much risk.

        • So, I take it you don't live where Helene came through. Here's hoping the next one comes over your head.

          You seem to act like Cat 4 hurricanes haven't happened before....

          Strong hurricanes are a fact of life for those on the Gulf coast and southern states...they happen.

          Remember Katrina (I went through that one)...Camille? Ida? Andrew?

          There's countless other VERY strong hurricanes that hit way back in the recorded past...wiping out whole areas.

          And actually, this so far is one of the most quiet hurricane

          • Calling them experts does not make them qualified. There is a limited amount of data on the subject as we don't actively monitor the whole planet 24/7. We try, but the data isn't all there nor is the computing power. Combine that with the fact that it was there even less so, or non existant, in the 90s, 80s, 70s, and so on, means we don't really have much to compare it to. So when they claim "expert", you have to look into them a bit more.

            Here are some reasons they could not be credible:
            Lack of Relevan
            • The Babylon Bee is a parody site. They are pointing out the absurdity of the media's constant parroting of "climate change" irrespective of any causative evidence during any disaster or storm. Listen to NPR and take a shot every time they say "climate change" and you will be falling-down drunk before 8AM. They are usually making the connection before the first raindrop lands.
    • You're mistaking funding for income. The source of income is the end user, but funding mostly comes from investors. Income is (generally) what allow a company to sustain itself and keep running in an operating mode. Funding OTOH allows the company to setup and explore new avenues for income, which in this case means setting up mines/wells/etc, which is far more destructive (long term) for the environment than simply keeping existing projects running. Income can be used as a source of funding, in some cases,

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by XXongo ( 3986865 )

        You're mistaking funding for income. The source of income is the end user, but funding mostly comes from investors.

        But funding is provided by investors in the anticipation of future income. They are not unrelated.

  • Another lame Guardian article from msmash (Score:5, Informative)

    by magzteel ( 5013587 ) on Thursday October 03, 2024 @09:02AM (#64836719)

    Pension managers invest pension funds so they can pay pensions in the future. That's their job, and the employees rely on them to do it well.

    Private equity funds provide a vehicle for investing in things through private equity fund managers. That's their job, and the private equity investors rely on them to do it well.

    When you buy into a private equity fund you know full well what type of investments they will be making, it's all disclosed up front. So this notion that pension fund managers are unaware of what they are buying is nonsense. The way this article is spun it's like the big bad private equity funds are somehow just grabbing pension money somehow and funneling it to their pet projects.

    • Re:Another lame Guardian article from msmash (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rapjr ( 732628 ) on Thursday October 03, 2024 @10:23AM (#64836895)
      From the article:

      "The report traces a trend of private equity firms swooping in as large oil and gas firms seek to shed older and dirtier assets and the bigger banks increasingly regard them as risky investments. Thanks to limited disclosure rules, regulatory loopholes and complex corporate structures, some of the dirtiest assets have come to be owned by relatively obscure investment outfits, the report says."

      So the asset managers do not know what they are buying and these particular assets are especially risky, so risky the banks are getting rid of them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Zak3056 ( 69287 )

        From the article:

        "The report traces a trend of private equity firms swooping in as large oil and gas firms seek to shed older and dirtier assets and the bigger banks increasingly regard them as risky investments. Thanks to limited disclosure rules, regulatory loopholes and complex corporate structures, some of the dirtiest assets have come to be owned by relatively obscure investment outfits, the report says."

        So the asset managers do not know what they are buying and these particular assets are especially risky, so risky the banks are getting rid of them.

        Your claim that "asset managers do not know what they are buying" is not at all supported by the provided quote.

      • From the article:

        "The report traces a trend of private equity firms swooping in as large oil and gas firms seek to shed older and dirtier assets and the bigger banks increasingly regard them as risky investments. Thanks to limited disclosure rules, regulatory loopholes and complex corporate structures, some of the dirtiest assets have come to be owned by relatively obscure investment outfits, the report says."

        So the asset managers do not know what they are buying and these particular assets are especially risky, so risky the banks are getting rid of them.

        Ah right, don't invest in fossil fuels, one day they will be stranded assets! I'll ignore the scary stories made up by people with an agenda. All this article is saying is that as a strategy this does not work.

        As some organizations divest purely as a result of PR pressure, there are lots of others who are happy to pick up those profits in return. The profits are not going away, scary stories notwithstanding. I'm a customer, I heat my house and fuel my car. I'll be doing those things for a long tim

  • I'm a bastard (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Baron_Yam ( 643147 )

    I think we should be going full throttle on weaning humanity off of oil, and spending a lot of money on closed-cycle tech and artificial sequestration... but none of that is happening any time soon.

    I have significant investments in the energy sector, majority petrochemical, because what is 'significant' to me is a drop of piss in the ocean compared to the market as a whole. I will never make a difference as an individual and I'm not going to ignore the likely returns.

    But give me a politician who will legis

  • The Dick Cheney theory (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sphealey ( 2855 ) on Thursday October 03, 2024 @09:09AM (#64836751)

    This is basically the Dick Cheney theory: he who controls that last 50 million barrels of oil will win control of as much of the Earth as they want. Which includes not really being concerned about the condition of the parts of the Earth they don't want, and not understanding the interconnectedness of all people and regions of the planet.

    • 50 million barrels? That's about 4 days of U.S. production. Even in a post-apocalyptic world, that's not enough for world domination.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by q_e_t ( 5104099 )
        It depends a bit on how apocalyptic it the apocalypse was. If you're down to the last 1000 non-zombies, that's a lot of oil, unless the zombies have developed a taste for crude as well as brains.
    • Maybe neocon Dick Cheney wants you to not notice decades of war, pollution, and blowing stuff up. Hugely profitable and environmentally damaging. We could stop that pollution quickly, but we don't. Instead neocons have you focusing on your neighbor's car so we the people remain divided.

    • This is more about the value of the US dollar as a global reserve currency today than it is about the environment or climate change; petrodollar.
      The US dollar is being devalued and decoupling it from oil at this juncture would be suicide. When your ship is sinking you do not worry about the impact the carpet fibers will have on the marine life.

    • This is basically the Dick Cheney theory: he who controls that last 50 million barrels of oil will win control of as much of the Earth as they want.

      There will never be a "last 50 million barrels". We'll stop using oil long before we get to that point.

  • that hydrocarbon extraction isn't going anywhere, for decades, at the very least.

    Every single country uses vast quantities of fermented dinosaur. Countries that can't mine it themselves are holding out fistfulls of cash in order to buy it from some other country. Maybe that will change. Next century. But not anytime soon.

    If the civilized world steps back from hydrocarbon extraction and sales, less civilized countries will step in and fill the gap coughRUSSIAcough. The same amount of carbon will get

  • Seems like the play here is to rile up pitchfork yielding enviro mongers and point them at the funding source for evil sources of energy?
    juvenile.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yes it's a bunch of manipulative editorializing by the Guardian. Par for the course.
      They speak of private investments as if it's a nefarious thing, dastardly fund managers hiding from public scrutiny - private investing is by definition private. Their favoured Progressive Causes are private too.

  • In the US, they are plowing the funds.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rossdee ( 243626 )

      I thought that a plough was towed behind a tractor to break up ground on a farm for planting crops.

      And a plow was a blade on the front of a truck to clear away snow.

      But then I wasn't born in the USA.

  • Ethical investing likely has very little impact on outcomes. If the pension funds choose to invest elsewhere, the oil wells will still be drilled because there is money to be made. Someone else will take advantage of that profitable investment opportunity.

    The real message here is that these folks don't believe we are going to wean ourselves off fossil fuels. At least not to the extent it will make their investments unprofitable. We can hope they are wrong, But I would give more credence to the investment

    • Ethical investing likely has very little impact on outcomes. If the pension funds choose to invest elsewhere, the oil wells will still be drilled because there is money to be made. Someone else will take advantage of that profitable investment opportunity.

      Got any evidence to back that up? From a quick search, it looks more like there's problems with implementation than any fundamental issues, e.g. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]

      • While pension fund climate action is growing , the ambition of their strategies is not aligned with a rapid fossil fuel phaseout

        Why would it be? That is not actually their reason for existing.

        If pension funds are to significantly contribute to phasing out fossil fuels, redefining pension fund responsibilities and the traditional shareholder role will likely be required.

        LOL. We need them to cease concerning themselves with pensions and become instruments of our environmental agenda instead.

        • We need them to cease concerning themselves with pensions and become instruments of our environmental agenda instead.

          I agree. While they need to make sure they can pay pensions, they need to do it in a way that allows the human species to thrive. I question whether disinvesting in fossil fuel will achieve that goal, but focusing on investments that reduce emissions instead would.

      • It s the lack of evidence from over 50 years of ethical investing that is the problem. To be clear, I am specifically looking at the issue here of avoiding investments in certain companies or industries in order to reduce negative outcomes from their operations. There is no real evidence that is a likely result.

        It is obvious that there are plenty of ethically motivated investments that have positive outcomes. Investing in solar panels on your roof for instance.

        I am also not talking about disinvestment c

  • ...in the UK is to reduce CO2 emissions & dependency on fossil fuels. Ironic that they're effectively supporting fossil fuels then, right? It's almost as if the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing. Will the current govt take a look at where public money is going to ensure that they can meet CO2 emissions reductions targets, including these massive investments from their pension funds?

    It's not like large investors can't stipulate which particular types of investment they don't want to make

  • Private equity firms are using US public sector workers' retirement savings

    We need a smaller public sector. A smaller public sector will generate less savings for these pension funds to invest. Next, we make everyone a contractor, responsible for their own retirement. This will allow them to direct their savings toward investments that they believe have the highest value. Including environmental values if they so desire.

    This is what you get when you socialize the allocation of capital problem. Bad decision making due to a huge, monolithic pool of savings being a target for Big In

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