So much for stranded assets then.

Is there any better proof that “believing” in climate action is just a fashion statement? For all the talk of the end of fossil fuels, the biggest and most powerful funds in the world sign up for their “Net Zero” clubs but pour money into oil, gas and coal, hither thither, anyway.

The 30 biggest funds in the world manage  €42.5 trillion  in assets.  These funds are so big, they can move markets if they want too…

Soak in that hypocrisy

Larry Fink starred at Davos and other events  pontification for years on the importance of “tackling climate change”, how it’s an investment risk, and on how “climate change will upend” the way we do business, and how we need to do “long termism“. But he’s the CEO of BlackRock, the largest asset management fund in the world and they don’t mind at all they profit from all the fossil fuels. They joined the Net Zero Asset Manager Alliance, but do almost nothing. Indeed, vocalizing about what bad investments fossil fuels are while investing in them, is like a reverse pump and dump. They’re just scaring off the competition.

Poor old journalists and NGO’s are flummoxed, but at least they are paying attention:

Climate Crisis? Fund Managers Are Sticking With Fossil Fuel

A new report alleges broken promises on the part of bankers and asset managers who just a year ago pledged to fight global warming.

Tim Quinson, Bloomberg

None of the world’s largest asset managers has definitively called on fossil-fuel companies to stop the development of new oil and gas projects.

Surely, one would think, given all the climate-conscious talk coming from Wall Street bigwigs like BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink, that the investment industry would be using all of its muscle to press the world’s worst polluters to reduce their production of dangerous greenhouse gases.

Instead, the opposite is true.

Together, 30 of the biggest asset managers have at least $550 billion invested in oil, gas and coal companies that have expansion plans, and even more alarmingly, they continue to provide “fresh cash to companies that are ignoring climate science,” said Lara Cuvelier, sustainable investment campaigner at Reclaim Finance, a nonprofit which published a scorecard Wednesday grading investment firms on their environmental commitments.

From the report — a list of Climate Hypocrites: 

Being a Net Zero Manager means doing nothing at all…

h/t to Rafe Champion

Asset managers are highly investing in fossil fuel expansion.
1. Coal: The 30 asset managers we assessed have combined holdings of US$ 82.5bn in companies involved in coal expansion as of November 2021.3 The biggest investors include BlackRock and Vanguard, which together hold US$ 60bn. The 25 asset managers with net zero pledges account for 97% of these holdings in coal expansion.

2. Oil and gas: The 30 asset managers have combined holdings of US$ 468bn as of March 2022 in 12 major oil and gas companies, which are among the biggest short-term developers in oil and gas (including in Gazprom, Saudi Aramco, BP, Shell, TotalEnergies, Chevron and Exxon).4 Exxon is the company the most supported by the asset managers, which have combined holdings of US$ 130bn in shares and bonds of the US company.

23 out of the 30 asset managers do not restrict investments in companies launching new coal projects.

It’s always about the money, except when it’s about power.

Guest essay by Eric Worrall

h/t observa; Green failure in the midst of plenty: Britain has vast frackable gas reserves which could provide affordable energy for decades to come. But a bipartisan commitment to failed green policies has left Britain with nightmare energy shortages, a string of energy sector bankruptcies, and skyrocketing prices.

Energy bosses call for price cap to be scrapped and more aid to prevent ‘horrific’ winter ahead

James Sillars, business reporter

Bosses of the UK’s largest energy firms have called on the government to intervene with “unprecedented” measures to prevent a fuel poverty crisis next winter.

The chief executives told MPs investigating energy prices that while pre-payment customers were already reeling from the effects of rising bills, they expected the numbers in financial distress to only increase as time goes on ahead of another expected leap in the energy price cap from October.

The cap rose by a record £693 per year on average in April – with pre-payment customers, who tend to be among the most vulnerable, facing an even larger increase.

The Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) committee heard ScottishPower chief executive Keith Anderson call for the cap system – blamed for the failure of dozens of competitors as they were unable to pass on huge rises in raw energy costs – to be scrapped in favour of a social tariff that would see the better off pay more.

He also suggested that, in the interim, a deficit fund should be established to allow people deemed struggling to be given 10 years to pay off £1,000 on their bills.

…

Research from industry specialist Cornwall Insight has predicted another hike of almost £500 to the average annual bill at that time reflecting, for the first time, heightened wholesale energy costs since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Such an increase would leave the average annual bill beyond £2,450.

…

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/energy-bosses-call-for-price-cap-to-be-scrapped-and-more-aid-to-prevent-horrific-winter-ahead/ar-AAWmysw

According to Money Saving Expert, UK consumers pay around £0.28 / KWh (US $0.36 / KWh), almost double California’s $0.19 / KWh – and that is with the price capping scheme.

Domestic gas is cheaper – but the green obsessed UK government has banned gas boilers in new homes from 2025, and is pushing hard to phase out all domestic gas usage, on the grounds that gas produces greenhouse emissions.

Cornwall Insight (quoted above) predicts a substantial increase of £500 / annum (US $750 / annum) for consumers this year, on top of the price rises they have already experienced.

In my opinion the coming price rises could be far worse than predicted. A pipe which runs through a war zone is not my idea of energy security. Even though the UK is not as heavily dependent on Russian gas as say Germany, if the Ukraine conflict deteriorates, everyone will be knocking on the door of European suppliers. Prices could go completely nuts.

This unaffordable energy nightmare could be abolished at a stroke of a pen. The UK fracking revolution is on the launchpad, waiting for regulatory approval – but the owners of an experimental shale gas well in Lancashire are too busy fighting to prevent the British government from permanently sealing their wells with concrete to focus on new gas field development.

I don’t know what else to say. The pain will continue until voters wake up, and demand their politicians allow shale gas fracking.

But British voters seem doggedly determined to see this insanity through to the end, to test to destruction their fantasy that government investment in renewables can deliver, when we have ample evidence that it cannot.