By Jo Nova

Surprise! The World’s biggest bankers are suddenly energy pragmatists

In February three of the four largest financial houses in the world, left the giant financial cabal called“Climate 100+” (the fourth one left a year ago). BlackRock, JP Morgan and State Street all parted ways with the billionaire-club of philanthropists trying to bully the world into buying their own renewables.  In the two months since then, two of their CEO’s have put out “letters to shareholders” predicting how the transition is going to be slower and harder and how we still need fossil fuels.

Suddenly everyone sounds like an energy skeptic.

There are lots of reasons for this shift:

1: US Republican States are pointing the “AntiTrust” gun at the billionaire banker club because it looks exactly like a monopolistic cabal doing its best to collude to reduce competition. The States are also firing up the fiduciary duty canon.  Hence the bankers not only want to back away from the cabal, they want to sound like bankers that care about investing their clients funds.

2. The renewables bubble is deflating  fast, and the CEO’s can see what’s coming. Think of their renewable energy passion a few years ago as a pump-n-dump scheme and it all makes more sense. Right now smart bankers are smoothing the exit ramp out of the bubble they created and hoping no one notices how wrong all their previous statements were.

3. Maybe there’s a point where smart banker billionaires realize they don’t want their own homeland to hit the skids. They’ve all made a fortune in the last four years, but who wants that fifth private jet if there is no homeland to come home too? Jamie Dimon astonished people when came out in January saying Trump’s policies were “kinda right”. Billionaires might want to visit China, but they don’t want to live there. And as I said at the time, maybe the wake up call was when the paratroopers-of-death dropped into a democracy and the Ivy league started cheering them on.

4. And besides, Trump might even win.

How times have changed

A year ago the CEO of the JP Morgan was calling for forced property seizure in a climate emergency:

6 April 2023 10:29 GMT, Recharge

This year we need a reality check:

By Irina Slav, OilPrice, April 19th, 2024

Inflation, interest rates, and wars may well delay the energy transition by quite a long time, JP Morgan has warned in a call for “a reality check” on its shift from hydrocarbons to alternatives.

…the bank’s head of global energy strategy, Christyan Malek, … forecasts that governments will dial down the push to transition from oil and gas to wind and solar as their financial resources dwindle.

Jamie Dimon’s Letter to Shareholders in 2024, is a 30,000 word 70 page letter. Despite being a small book it mentions “climate” just 13 times. He’s now more concerned about China (18 mentions) and mentions the military (24 times). He criticizes the Inflation Reduction Act because it angered all the allies of the US and he argues the US should dig up gas and sell it for political gain as well as the money:

Trade is realpolitik, and the recent cancellation of future liquified natural gas (LNG) projects is a good example of this fact. The projects were delayed mainly for political reasons — to pacify those who believe that gas is bad and that oil and gas projects should simply be stopped. This is not only wrong but also enormously naïve. One of the best ways to reduce CO2 for the next few decades is to use gas to replace coal. When oil and gas prices skyrocketed last winter, nations around the world — wealthy and very climate-conscious nations like France, Germany and the Netherlands, as well as lower-income nations like Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam that could not afford the higher cost — started to turn back to their coal plants. This highlights the importance of safe, secure and affordable energy. Second, the export of LNG is a great economic boon for the United States. But most important is the realpolitik goal: Our allied nations that need secure and affordable energy resources, including critical nations like Japan, Korea and most of our European allies, would like to be able to depend on the United States for energy. This now puts them in a difficult position — they may have to look elsewhere for such supplies, turning to Iran, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates or maybe even Russia. We need to minimize anything that can tear at our economic bonds with our allies.

The strength of our domestic production of energy gives us a “power advantage” — cheaper and more reliable energy, which creates economic and geopolitical advantages.

Meanwhile Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the largest asset fund in the world, has undergone a very similar transformation. In 2021, he was raving how the existential crisis and how this was the beginning of a long and rapidly accelerating transition:

I believe that the pandemic has presented such an existential crisis – such a stark reminder of our fragility – that it has driven us to confront the global threat of climate change more forcefully and to consider how, like the pandemic, it will alter our lives. It has reminded us how the biggest crises, whether medical or environmental, demand a global and ambitious response.

…I believe that this is the beginning of a long but rapidly accelerating transition – one that will unfold over many years and reshape asset prices of every type. We know that climate risk is investment risk.

But now, after the bubble came and went, now he’s telling us energy security is just as important as the climate crisis:

By Eric Johnston, March 27, 2024, The Australian Business Review

One of the world’s most influential investors has said the switch is on to “energy pragmatism” that recognises energy security is just as important in the move to net zero. Larry Fink of the $US10 trillion ($15.3 trillion) BlackRock has acknowledged the world will need to rely on oil and gas “for years to come” through the uneven energy transition.

… his letter … which runs to almost 30 pages, only mentions climate change in passing and the discussion is limited to strategies under way in the energy transition.

Larry Fink’s letter to investors in 2024 didn’t even mention ESG.

These are the levers of power you see shifting. BlackRock manages $10 trillion dollars in assets, and according to Jamie Dimon’s letter,  JP Morgan was managing assets of $7.6 trillion. When these men write long letters, Wall Street studies them.

A lot of people have suddenly started to say in April that “we always knew the transition would be expensive” — following the bankers.

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach

Well, I see that the climate hypemeisters are at it again. Here’s Google News on the subject.

Figure 1. The usual, from the usual suspects.

So I thought I’d take a look at some of the claims. To start with, here’s an overview of the sea level rise around the US coasts.

Figure 2. US relative sea level trends. Red is fastest rising, then orange, yellow, green, and finally blue for areas where relative sea level is falling. SOURCE: NOAA

A few notes of interest. First, look at the east coast / west coast differences in relative sea level rise. This is generally not because sea levels are rising at different rates on the east and west coasts. It’s because the land is generally sinking on the east coast and rising on the west coast. Nothing to do with the ocean.

Next, check out the local differences. At Grand Isle, Louisiana, the big red arrow in the Gulf of Mexico, the relative sea level is rising at 9.2 mm per year … while only a short distance away, the green arrow to the right of Grand Isle shows that Pensacola, Florida has a relative sea level rise less than a third of that, 2.7 mm per year.

Why different sea level rise rates? Again, it has nothing to do with the ocean. It’s because Grand Isle is a silty barrier island in the Mississippi Delta, and like all such islands, it’s slowly sinking into the briny blue.

So … guess which areas of the US the serial sea level doomcasters are focused on?

Well, here’s the Washington Post’s poster child for the “catastrophe” … Dauphin Island, Louisiana.

Figure 3. Dauphin Island, Alabama

And guess what? It’s another slowly sinking barrier island. Here’s what they claim is happening there.

Figure 4. The WaPo’s graph of the horrible, terrible sea level rise at Dauphin Island. Note that it is cut off at about 2022 … SOURCE: Washington Post

However, here’s what NOAA says about the sea level rise there.

Figure 5. NOAA relative sea level trend, Dauphin Island, Alabama. SOURCE: NOAA

Note that the Washington Post has cut off the last part of the data, which shows that Dauphin Island sea level rates are back to historical norms … bad journalists, no cookies …

And in the other Washington Post article, they go on about how terrible things are because of the recent rate of sea level rise in Charleston, South Carolina. Here’s the NOAA data for that tidal station.

Figure 6. NOAA relative sea level trend, Charleston, South Carolina. SOURCE: NOAA

Yes, there has been a recent increase in sea level rates in Charleston. But is it historically unusual? Well … in a word, no. I downloaded the data to take an accurate look at the rates of rise.

Figure 7. Comparison of recent and historical sea level rise rates, using the NOAA Charleston data linked above.

[CODA] And after writing the above, as Michael Corleone said, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!” …

I closed the page on this post and resumed wandering the web, and then I have the misfortune to see the Boston Globe is up in arms about sea levels. They say (emphasis mine):

Last year, sea levels along the Boston coastline were, on average, higher than at any other point in recorded history: about 14 inches above levels in 1921, when records began.

“This hasn’t stopped or slowed down yet,” said Rob DeConto, a climate scientist who studies ice sheets in a warming climate and a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The record-breaking sea level is yet another data point showcasing a decades-long trend that is accelerating at a startling pace. As climate change worsens, the shoreline along much of the city will need new flood protections, such as berms, sea walls, and restored marshlands, as early as 2030, the latest available data provided by Boston plainly show.

As 2030 approaches, climate resilience experts told the Globe, the rapidly accelerating pace of sea level rise necessitates action.

Hmmm, sez I … so I got the Boston data from NOAA.

Figure 8. Boston sea level trend

Hmmm, sez I … not seeing the dreaded “rapidly accelerating pace of sea level rise” there. So I downloaded the data and analyzed it for acceleration. Here’s the result. Each point shows the acceleration over the thirty years previous to that date.

Figure 9. Trailing 30-year sea level rise acceleration rates, Boston Massachusetts.

As you can see, the acceleration of Boston sea level rise over the last 30 years has been … well … not to put too fine a point on it … basically zero. Zip. Nada. Nothing.

You can also see the alternating acceleration and deceleration of sea level rise over time, which is visible in all the sea level records around the world. And so we can be sure that at some time in the future, sea levels in Boston will actually begin to accelerate again.

And when that happens, be prepared for the climatastrophist hype to hit new highs.

Forewarned is forearmed …

TL;DR Version: The sea level rates are doing what they’ve always done. There’s been no unusual “acceleration” in the tide gauge measurements. The east coast land is still sinking, the west coast land is still rising, acceleration is still alternating with deceleration, and just like always, silty barrier islands in river deltas are slowly returning to the ocean …

… and when Bill Gates, Obama, and the rest of the pluted bloatocrats stop buying million-dollar beachfront estates, you might start thinking about sea levels.

Until then?

Chill.

And here in Northern California, where we were supposed to be in a permanent drought … it’s raining again. The view from here …

While that’s great for the forest, and the grass loves it, that also means I’m gonna have to mow our two-acre clearing again … my gorgeous ex-fiancee sez I should hire someone to do it, but I figure, why should illegal immigrants have all the fun?

Best to all, stay well,

w.

PS: When you comment, please quote the exact words you are discussing, to avoid misunderstandings. And if you want to show that Willis is wrong, here’s how to do it.