Renewable Revolution

Alex Lenferna 
October 23, 2015 1:17 pm

SNIPPETS:

It is one thing to say that divestment is not the solution to climate change, but it’s another to make Gates’ claim that divestment is a “false solution” that “won’t emit less carbon” and that there is no “direct path between divesting and solving climate change.”

Contrary to Gates, there is a chorus of influential and credible voices who have illustrated how divestment is an important part of aligning the financial sector with a clean energy future, and who have illustrated that the societal power it builds is an important and powerful tool in unlocking the clean energy revolution and legislation needed to help solve climate change.

We can start by asking the fossil fuel industry itself, who, despite their feeble attempts to discredit the fossil fuel divestment movement,    fund bogus divestment reports and claim divestment is an ineffective strategy, have reluctantly admitted to the power of divestment.

For instance, in contradiction to their PR poker face, Peabody, the largest private-sector coal company in the world, submitted a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, where they admitted that by shifting perceptions around fossil fuels, spurring on restrictive legislation and driving unfavorable lending policies, divestment efforts “could significantly affect demand for [their] products and securities.”

For more divestment advice, we could also ask the researchers at Oxford University’s Stranded Assets Program, whose influential report on divestment points out that “in almost every divestment campaign [they] reviewed from adult services to Darfur, from tobacco to South Africa, divestment campaigns were successful in lobbying for restrictive legislation.” Their report illustrated that the political and social power that divestment builds through stigmatizing the fossil fuel industry could also “indirectly influence all investors … to go underweight on fossil fuel stocks and debt in their portfolios.”

Alternatively, we could ask those “radical” environmentalists    over at HSBC bank who recently issued a  research report warning investors that the fossil fuel industry is at serious and growing risk of  stranded assets from climate policies and unfavorable economics, including reduced demand for fossil fuels and the rapid development of   renewable energy and efficiency measures. Contrary to Gates’ claim that divestment “won’t emit less carbon,” HSBC encouraged their investors to divest from fossil fuels and argued that divestment could lead to less fossil fuel production and less emissions.

According to HSBC, divestment could help “extend the carbon budget” and would create “less demand for shares and bonds [which] ultimately increases the cost of capital to companies and limits the ability to finance expensive projects, which is particularly damaging in a sector where projects are inherently long term.”

Perhaps another good place to ask for divestment advice is the financial analysts over at the 2° Investing Initiative, who pointed out that “divesting from fossil fuels is an integral piece to aligning the financial sector with a 2 degree C climate scenario.”

This claim is substantiated by the International Energy Agency (IEA), which estimates that reductions in fossil fuel investments of $4.9 trillion and additional divestment away from fossil-fueled power-transmission and distribution of $1.2 trillion will be needed by 2035 if we are to achieve the internationally agreed upon 2 degree C target—beyond which (and even before which) climate change becomes truly devastating.

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Agelbert NOTE: Bill Gates  (see the  crocodile tears about the welfare of humanity is the albi of tyrants) DOING what he DOES:

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As part of Gates’ rejection of divestment, he provided a misleading (Exxon endorsed) assessment of the economics of the clean energy transition (seemingly out of the pages of a fossil fuel industry misinformation handbook or his favored climate contrarian adviser Bjorn Lomborg). Gates claimed that the only way current technology could reduce global emissions is at “beyond astronomical cost,”

Not only would transitioning in line with the 2°C target save us from high fuel costs, it would also create millions of jobs, grow the economy, prevent major negative impacts on global health and development, protect clean air and water, and avert the truly astronomical costs of climate change—estimated to be as high as $3,290 trillion by 2200.

http://ecowatch.com/2015/10/23/bill-gates-divest-fossil-fuels/

Agelbert COMMENT: Excellent article. Bill Gates does not get the fact that the crime of ecocide is being been committed. And he does not get that because, up until now, Bill Gates has profited from the commission of that crime against humanity and the biosphere.

Bill Gates is irresponsible and criminally negligent. He and Melinda are a danger to their own offspring as well as the rest of the biosphere.

Representatives Ted Lieu and Mark DeSaulnier from California urged Attorney General Loretta Lynch on Friday to launch an investigation into Exxon.

It's definitely time for this to happen - and the investigation shouldn't stop with Exxon - we need a full investigation into every part of Big Oil's decades-long disinformation campaign, particularly the role Koch Industries may be playing in it all.
　

When the DoJ took down Big Tobacco - it wasn't just Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds - they went after the lobbying groups and the research shills too.

Exxon's Climate Coverup

Corruption of Government and Environment by Fossil Fuel Companies

Bill Gates will come around to divest from fossil fuels AND his beloved Nuclear Power Crap as his profits turn into massive losses.  THAT, he CAN understand. Greed is what drives him and his dirty energy and GMO environment harming products fund.

Renewable is the cheaper energy option without fossil fuel and hidden nuclear subsides.

But in the meantime he will be supporting stupid, corrupt politicians that do not want Monsanto investigated or fossil fuel subsidies eliminated. Remember that.

Dr. Richard A. Houghton, acting president of the WOODS HOLE RESEARCH CENTER says TINA to a Low Carbon Economy

Robert F. Kennedy Jr: In the next decade there will be an epic battle for survival for humanity against the forces of ignorance and greed. It’s going to be Armageddon, represented by the oil industry on one side, versus the renewable industry on the other. And people are going to have to choose sides – including politically.

They will have to choose sides because oil and coal, they will not be able to survive – they are not going to be able to burn their proven reserves. If they do, then we are all dead. And they are quite willing to burn it. We’re all going to be part of that battle. We are going to watch governments being buffeted by the whims of money and greed on one side, and idealism and hope on the other.

Bill and Melinda Gates need to be held responsible for endangering future generations.   


Our Responsibility to Future Generations

I also wish to make one observation. It is in the category of correct accounting procedures. Perhaps it is such a shock to the corporate world that they had to invent a new accounting term (i.e. Stranded Assets.).

"Stranded Assets", the new term for fossil fuels and the accompanying infrastructure plant and equipment, in real world accounting, means "LIABILITIES".

When that realization FINALLY hits the balance sheet preparers in the corporate world, the red ink will produce a TORRENT of fossil fuel industry bankruptcies. GOOD!