Climate Policy: Stormy Weather?

in ,

When it comes to climate policy, Donald Trump may be less of an outlier than bien-pensant Europeans — or their imitators in California and New York — like to think. Tony Blair, not the worst bellwether in certain circles, has now signaled unease over how things are going — for the second time this year. Blair’s argument does not rest on the reality of climate change, but on whether the current approach toward it makes sense. In his view, it does not. Moreover, he warns that “most people” are coming to the same conclusion….

Read More

Climate Policy: EAT Your Greens

in ,

There has been some talk of late that we may have reached peak climate policy madness.

I am not convinced. More on why not on another occasion, but for now consider the new (or, rather updated) report by the would-be food police of the pompously named EAT-Lancet Commission. The Lancet is a once distinguished, now somewhat disreputable and highly politicized medical journal. EAT, which was founded by a Norwegian billionaire, describes itself as the “science-based platform for food system transformation.” Science-based! It “connects and translates science to policy, business and society to make food healthy, fair and sustainable for people and planet.” Science. Or should that be #science?

Read More

Coal’s Rich Seam

in ,

Wicked, grubby old King Coal, they said, was on his last legs.

Weeks before the signing of the Paris Climate Accord at the end of 2015, Carbon Tracker (“aligning capital market actions with climate reality”)  estimated that if the world was to meet the climate target set out in the agreement, then, according to the International Energy Agency’s “450” scenario, “the production from … existing coal mines is sufficient to meet the volume of coal required … It is the end of the road for expansion of the coal sector.”

Read More

Doughnuts and Degrowth

in ,

Writing in a recent Capital Letter about degrowth — an ideology revolving around the reorientation of the global (particularly in richer parts of the world) economy away from the pursuit of growth — I wanted to stress that this is not an outlier viewpoint shared only by the straitjacketed, which could be safely ignored.

And so I modestly repeated a point I had made in an earlier article on degrowth:

[D]egrowth has made inroads into the thinking of a significant cohort of scientists, economists, NGOs, activists, and writers. Signs of interest in it, if only at the periphery, can be detected in both bureaucratic and political circles, including the European Union and the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…[F]ormer Obama energy secretary (and Nobel laureate) Steven Chu…has argued for “an economy based on no growth or even shrinking growth.”

On July 2, the Guardian published an article by Olivier De Schutter. He is a Belgian academic, the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. He wants us to “shift our focus from growth to humanity.”

Read More

Degrowth and De-Democracy

in ,

The word “degrowth” was probably coined by an Austro-French philosopher — words to be thrilled by — during the eco-panic of the early 1970s, the time of The Population Bomb and all the rest. But the thinking behind the word contains elements that are far older, fantasies of timeless appeal and unchanging stupidity. There is a yearning for a lost Arcadia, a fetishization of “nature” (sorry, “Nature”), and a rejection of modernity. Some on the interwar far right with their faith in “organic” food, dislike of the urban, and distrust of free markets would have understood. Make of that what you will.

This nonsense is infinitely more toxic when intertwined with millenarian belief, another ancient failing. Our sins — overconsumption, greed, and technological overreach — have led to the “boiling” of the planet. Punishment is underway, with more to come unless averted by penance and the restoration of a more virtuous order.

And that’s where degrowth comes in.

Read More

ESG/Stakeholder Capitalism: Letting Oil Companies be Oil Companies (or not)

in ,

The principle that companies should stick to doing what they know best or to areas of business close to their existing areas of competence is by no means mandatory, but it’s one that any company should consider carefully before venturing into some new business area.

In November, I looked at how the Norwegian oil & gas champion Equinor (once more honestly known as Statoil) was doing with its diversification into renewables. To be fair, Equinor’s experience in the North Sea is of some assistance in building offshore wind farms, but this diversification effort has had its difficulties. Undeterred, the company, supported by its majority shareholder, the Norwegian state, which talks out of both sides of its mouth when it comes to oil and gas, has plowed on: bad luck taxpayers! Bad luck minority shareholders!

Read More

The War on Growth

in ,

The industrial revolution is not yet canceled, but it has become “problematic.” When delegates arrived in Glasgow, Scotland, for Conference of the Parties 26, the 2021 edition of the U.N.’s climate jamboree, Britain’s then–prime minister, Boris Johnson, welcomed them with a speech in which, after some by-the-numbers apocalypticism (crops withering, locusts swarming, wildfires, cyclones, Miami underwater), he turned his attention to the industrial revolution: “It was here in Glasgow, 250 years ago, that James Watt came up with a machine that was powered by steam, that was produced by burning coal. . . . We’ve brought you to the very place where the doomsday machine began to tick.”

Read More

Stranded: The False Promise of Electric Cars

in ,

The more the state ‘plans,’” wrote Hayek, “the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.” This may resonate with the driver of an electric vehicle (EV) who has pulled up at a charging station in the middle of nowhere, only to find it broken.

In January last year, Carlos Tavares, the CEO of Stellantis, the world’s fifth-largest carmaker (it was formed by the merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot), described electrification as “a technology chosen by politicians” and said it was “imposed” on the auto sector. By contrast, the triumph of the internal-combustion engine (ICE) over a century ago was organic. Human ingenuity and the power of markets led to a product that swept almost everything else off the road. EVs (which first had a moment around 1900) were not banned, and neither was the horse. In due course, ICE horseless carriages for the Astors were followed by the Model T and its kin. The automotive age had truly arrived…

Read More

To Be Anti-ESG Is to Be against Free Market Capitalism? Not So Much.

in ,

With environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing — a profoundly political “discipline” in which actual or prospective portfolio companies are measured against a varying selection of environmental, social and governance metrics — finally coming under the fire that it deserves, its advocates are rushing to its defense, many of them seemingly outraged that a political agenda has attracted the attention of elected politicians who disagree with it…

Read More

Losing the Plot: Finance, Natural Gas, and ESG

in ,

It’s a crowded field, but as an example of the destructive uselessness of ESG (an investment “discipline” based on analyzing how companies measure up against somewhat vague environmental, social, and governance standards), this story from Bloomberg takes some beating.

Read More