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US firms like BlackRock are dropping their climate obsession while Europe ramps theirs up

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Larry Fink on stage at the 2022 New York Times DealBook on November 30, 2022. in New York CityPhoto by Thos Robinson/Getty Images for The New York Times

From LifeSiteNews

By David James

As U.S. firms such as BlackRock and JPMorgan Chase continue to distance themselves from the ESG and ‘climate change’ agendas, Europe has been moving aggressively in the opposite direction, suggesting a rift is forming on the global economic landscape.

The climate change debate is usually thought to be focused on scientific analyses of the earth’s atmosphere. But that is only what is on the surface. It is also very much about money and politics and there has been a big shift that looks likely to threaten support for the net zero initiative. It may lead to a deep economic and political rift between the U.S. and Europe.

Estimates of the cost of decarbonizing the economy by 2050 have varied, but it is generally agreed that it is a financial bonanza. Goldman Sachs is at the low end with a modest $80 trillion while Bank of America estimates an extraordinary $275 trillion, about 10 times the current value of the U.S. stock market. 

The finance sector, dizzy with the prospect of a huge investment opportunity, imposed a metric on corporations called Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), a mechanism for demanding that companies go down the net zero route – and also comply with diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) requirements, the “S” part of ESG. Corporations that did not cooperate were threatened with a loss of support in the market and lower relative share prices.  

That trend is starting to reverse. BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase, and State Street recently exited from Climate Action 100+, a coalition of the world’s largest institutional investors that pledges to “ensure the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters take necessary action on climate change.” The passive fund Vanguard, the world’s second largest, exited over a year ago. 

These four fund managers oversee assets of about $25 trillion, which is approximately a quarter of the entire funds under management in the world.

They are changing direction for two reasons. First, there was an implicit bargain with ESG, whereby compliant companies would not only get to save the environment but also get to see their share prices outperform non-compliant companies. It is not turning out that way. In fact, better returns have come from investing against ESG-compliant companies. 

More compellingly, 16 conservative state attorneys general in the U.S. have demanded answers from BlackRock’s directors regarding the Climate Action and ESG initiatives. Other fund managers and banks have also attracted unwanted scrutiny.

Nothing concentrates the mind of fund managers more than the prospect of clients withdrawing their funds – in this case state government pension money. Larry Fink, chief executive of BlackRock, is now saying he does not think it is helpful to use the term ESG, having been one of the most aggressive advocates. In his 2022 letter to CEOs he was issuing veiled threats to companies not complying with ESG. In 2024, he omitted the term entirely.

As one (anonymous) analyst writes:  “It is a very detailed control system for European companies where the European Commission can, in the future, dictate anything it wants – and punish for any violations any way it wants. Apart from the crazy regulatory load, this initiative can only be seen as a direct seizure of operational control of European companies, and thereby the European economy.”

So, while the U.S. looks to restore an unsteady version of capitalism, Europe is heading towards some kind of climate-driven socialism. 

The EU plan seems to be to eventually direct their banks’ lending, which would radically undermine the region’s free-market system and establish something more like communist-style centralized control. 

This does not mean U.S. governments and bureaucrats will stop pushing their climate agenda. A court case brought by the city of Honolulu, for example, is one of several attempts to bankrupt the American energy industry. But when the big institutional money changes direction then corporations and governments eventually follow. 

The situation is further complicated by the emergence of the expanded BRICS alliance, which will soon represent a bigger proportion of the world economy than the G7. Saudi Arabia, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Egypt will be added to the original group of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. 

The BRICS nations will not allow the West’s climate change agenda to reshape their polities. Most of them are either sellers or heavy consumers of fossil fuels. Both India and China are increasing their use of coal, for instance, which makes Western attempts to reduce emissions largely pointless. 

The promise that hundreds of trillions of investment opportunities would come from converting to net zero was always just a financial projection, mere speculation. The scale of transiting to a decarbonized economy would be so enormous it would inevitably become a logistical nightmare, if not an impossibility. 

Energy expenditure represents about an eighth of the world’s GDP. Oil, natural gas and coal still provide 84 percent of the world’s energy, down just two per cent from 20 years ago. Production of renewable energy has increased but so has overall consumption. Oil powers 97 percent of all transportation.  

Relying solely on renewable energy was never realistic and now that the financial dynamic is changing the prospects of achieving net zero have become even more remote. As the finance website ZeroHedge opines: “Both the DEI and ESG gravy trains on Wall Street are finally coming to an unceremonious end.” Financial markets continually get seduced by fads; the ESG agenda is starting to look like yet another example.

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Automotive

Tesla Vandals Keep Running Into The Same Problem … Cameras

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Hudson Crozier

People damaging Teslas in anger toward their owners and Elon Musk aren’t picking up on the fact that the vehicles have multiple cameras capable of catching them in the act.

At least nine perpetrators have been caught on video keying, writing graffiti or otherwise defacing Tesla vehicles in parking lots across the U.S. in the month of March alone. Most have led to an arrest or warrant based partly on the footage, which Tesla’s “Sentry Mode” automatically films from the side of the unattended vehicle when it detects human activity nearby.

“Smile, you’re on camera,” Tesla warned in a March 20 X post about its Sentry Mode feature. Musk’s company has been working to upgrade Sentry Mode so that the vehicles will soon blast music at full volume when vandals attack it. The camera system, however, has not stopped an increasing number of vandals from singling out Tesla owners, usually in protest of Musk’s work in the Trump administration for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

One incident happened on March 29, the same day leftists coordinated protests around the country for a “Global Day of Action” against Musk. That Saturday also saw alleged instances of violence at protests. The demonstrations stemmed from an online call to action by groups such as the Disruption Project, which encourages activists to foment “uprisings,” find a “target’s” home address and other confrontational tactics.

Tesla’s press team did not respond to a request for comment.

One man allegedly caught on camera keying a Tesla SUV on March 24 apologized to the owner who confronted him in a parking lot in Pennsylvania, police and media reports said. The man faces charges of criminal mischief, harassment and disorderly conduct for allegedly carving a swastika onto the vehicle.

“I have nothing against your car, and I have nothing against you,” the suspect said while the owner filmed him in the parking lot. “Obviously, I have something against Elon Musk.” The man called his own behavior “misguided.”

The defendant’s lawyer told Fox News his “client is a proud father, long-time resident, and is currently undergoing cancer treatment” and that he would not comment publicly “pending the outcome of the case.”

One of the most aggressive acts caught by Sentry Mode was in the case of a man who drove an ATV-style vehicle into a Tesla on March 25. Texas police identified the man as Demarqeyun Marquize Cox, arrested him and said he allegedly gave two other nearby Teslas the same treatment while also writing “Elon” on them. The public defender office representing Cox did not respond to a voicemail from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Tesla cameras also caught three other people in FloridaTexas and Arizona keying and smearing bubble gum on the vehicles in March. The three suspects named by police do not have attorneys listed in county records available for contact.

Many of the vandalism cases since Trump’s return have reportedly caused thousands of dollars in damage for individual owners. For example, the bubble gum incident in Florida brought $2,623.66 in costs, while another keying incident in Minnesota brought $3,200.

Some reported attacks on Tesla vehicles and chargers have gotten the attention of federal law enforcement, including cases of alleged firebombing or shooting.

Two other suspected vandals in New York, one in Minnesota and one in Mississippi have reportedly avoided arrest for now — with one owner declining to press charges — but were all seen on the Teslas’ cameras scratching up the vehicles. Police identified the Mississippi suspect as an illegal migrant from Cuba.

One Tesla owner in North Dakota ridiculed a man who allegedly carved the letter “F” into his Cybertruck in a Costco parking lot — as seen on the Cybertruck’s camera. The defendant faces charges of criminal mischief, and county records say he is representing himself in court.

“I can’t believe this guy is potentially ruining his life to follow a political ideology,” the owner told WDAY News.

“If you’re going to vandalize these vehicles, you’re going to get caught,” the owner said.

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Carbon Tax

The book the carbon taxers don’t want you to read

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By Franco Terrazzano

Prime Minister Mark Carney wrote a 500-page book praising carbon taxes.

Well, I just wrote a book smashing through the government’s carbon tax propaganda.

It tells the inside story of the fight against the carbon tax. And it’s THE book the carbon taxers don’t want you to read.

My book is called Axing the Tax: The Rise and Fall of Canada’s Carbon Tax.


 
Axing the Tax: The Rise and Fall of Canada’s Carbon Tax 

Every now and then, the underdog wins one.

And it looks like that’s happening in the fight against the carbon tax.

It’s not over yet, but support for the carbon tax is crumbling. Some politicians vow to scrap it. Others hide behind vague plans to repackage it. But virtually everyone recognizes support for the current carbon tax has collapsed.

It wasn’t always this way.

For about a decade now, powerful politicians, government bureaucrats, academics, media elites and even big business have been pushing carbon taxes on the people.

But most of the time, politicians never asked the people if they supported carbon taxes. In other words, carbon taxes, and the resulting higher gas prices and heating bills, were forced on us.

We were told it was good for us. We were told carbon taxes were inevitable. We were told politicians couldn’t win elections without carbon taxes, even though the politicians that imposed them didn’t openly run on them. We were told that we needed to pay carbon taxes if we wanted to leave a healthy environment for our kids and grandkids. We were told we needed to pay carbon taxes if we wanted to be respected in the international community.

In this decade-long fight, it would have been understandable if the people had given up and given in to these claims. It would have been easier to accept what the elites wanted and just pay the damn bill. But against all odds, ordinary Canadians didn’t give up.

Canadians knew you could care about the environment and oppose carbon taxes. Canadians saw what they were paying at the gas station and on their heating bills, and they knew they were worse off, regardless of how many politicians, bureaucrats, journalists and academics tried to convince them otherwise. Canadians didn’t need advanced degrees in economics, climate science or politics to understand they were being sold a false bill of goods.

Making it more expensive for a mom in Port Hope to get to work, or grandparents in Toronto to pay their heating bill, or a student in Coquitlam to afford food won’t reduce emissions in China, Russia, India or the United States. It just leaves these Canadians, and many like them, with less money to afford everything else.

Ordinary Canadians understood carbon taxes amount to little more than a way for governments to take more money from us and dictate how we should live our lives. Ordinary Canadians also saw through the unfairness of the carbon tax.

Many of the elites pushing the carbon tax—the media, politicians, taxpayer-funded professors, laptop activists and corporate lobbyists—were well off and wouldn’t feel the brunt of carbon taxes. After all, living in a downtown condo and clamouring for higher carbon taxes doesn’t require much gas, diesel or propane.

But running a business, working in a shop, getting kids to soccer and growing food on the farm does. These are the Canadians the political class forgot about when pushing carbon taxes. These are the Canadians who never gave up. These are the Canadians who took time out of their busy lives to sign petitions, organize and attend rallies, share posts on social media, email politicians and hand out bumper stickers.

Because of these Canadians, the carbon tax could soon be swept onto the ash heap of history. I wrote this book for two reasons.

The first is because these ordinary Canadians deserve it. They worked really hard for a really long time against the odds. When all the power brokers in government told them, “Do what we say—or pay,” they didn’t give up. They deserve to know the time and effort they spent fighting the carbon tax mattered. They deserve all the credit.

Thank you for everything you did.

The second reason I wrote this book is so people know the real story of the carbon tax. The carbon tax was bad from the start and we fought it from the start. By reading this book, you will get the real story about the carbon tax, a story you won’t find anywhere else.

This book is important because if the federal Liberals’ carbon tax is killed, the carbon taxers will try to lay blame for their defeat on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. They will try to say that carbon taxes are a good idea, but Trudeau bungled the policy or wasn’t a good enough salesman. They will try to revive the carbon tax and once again make you pay more for gas, groceries, and home heating.

Just like with any failed five-year plan, there is a lingering whiff among the laptop class and the taxpayer-funded desk rulers that this was all a communication problem, that the ideal carbon tax hasn’t been tried yet. I can smell it outside my office building in Ottawa, where I write these words. We can’t let those embers smoulder and start a fire again.

This book shows why the carbon tax is and always will be bad policy for ordinary Canadians.

Franco’s note: You can pre-order a copy of my new book, Axing the Tax: The Rise and Fall of Canada’s Carbon Tax, here: https://www.amazon.ca/Axing-Tax-Rise-Canadas-Carbon

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