[HN Gopher] Investors overseeing $14T call for vote on company c...
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Investors overseeing $14T call for vote on company climate plans
Author : hassanahmad
Score : 75 points
Date : 2021-07-30 16:34 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| 4e530344963049 wrote:
| https://trimread.org/articles/32
| [deleted]
| akomtu wrote:
| I'll start taking these climate protagonists seriously when they
| make coca-cola stop using plastic bottles.
| kmlx wrote:
| aren't those recyclable?
| akomtu wrote:
| The ocean is filled with these bottles and microplastics.
| People who bother to put bottles in a recycle bin are pretty
| well off and don't drink coca-cola, and those who drink it
| throw these bottles anywhere they feel like.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| renewiltord wrote:
| In order to tackle the problem of climate change, I'm afraid
| we're going to have to just leave behind all those in the long
| tail who are single-issue on one individual aspect of the
| environment.
|
| So yes, you won't take them seriously, and they'll just not
| care. There's a sort of symmetry, with the exception that
| they're doing the other thing to some effect and you are not.
| cranekam wrote:
| I don't understand how people are conflating recycling and
| climate change. I have seen more and more of this recently. Of
| course, virgin plastics mean consuming more fossil fuels but
| beyond that the two are largely separate in my mind.
|
| Recycling everything is unlikely to do much to avert climate
| change, and could even make it worse if recycling is more
| energy intensive, but almost every day I see a discussion on
| climate and many "well, I recycle what I can" comments. Is
| there a common perception that recycling is a solution to the
| climate crisis or is it just that people feel it's the only
| loosely-related option they have?
|
| I'm not saying recycling isn't important -- it is -- but it's
| much less important than our rapidly collapsing climate.
| Proven wrote:
| Like I commented before, this is final stage of crony climatism:
| crony capitalists figured out they can skip the whole illusion of
| separation between them and useful idiots, and recruit the fools
| to work for them.
|
| Climatists' role is to pressure governments to spend more on
| dealing with climate "crisis", and make sure those businesses who
| cooperate get lucky in terms of handouts, incentives and
| programs.
|
| Crony capitalists' role is to milk enough money from the Fed and
| incidentally invest in the stock and bonds - just like the
| Pelosis.
| seriousquestion wrote:
| What are these investors invested in, exactly? So we know what we
| should invest in, because they will no doubt push it in a
| direction that's self interested.
| neom wrote:
| List of investors at the bottom of the letter[1] from there you
| should be able to pin down their majority of investments, but
| from a cursory glance it looks like: Basically everything.
|
| [1] https://www.iigcc.org/download/investor-position-
| statement-v...
| thinkcontext wrote:
| The biggest thing these investors should push for is the
| companies to stop supporting politicians stopping climate
| progress and industry organizations that do most of the lobbying.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| This seems wonderful--I'm a little confused on who these
| investors are though? Is this some sort of climate fund, or a
| bunch of ordinary fund managers who are deciding that climate is
| the best way to maximize returns for their investors (e.g., by
| making sure the companies they invest in stay ahead of
| regulation)? Also, I'd be really interested in how the investors
| are going to evaluate these corporations--it seems like there is
| a lot of potential for "climate virtue signaling" or other
| similarly low-impact-but-headline-grabbing solutions?
| relax88 wrote:
| Divesting from profitable companies is against the most
| important incentive of all (profit/money/value).
|
| The real solution is to implement carbon taxation globally via
| trade blocs/agreements and then suddenly the incentives are
| structured in a way that might actually accomplish something.
|
| No amount of divesting is going to accomplish anything. It just
| makes profitable oil companies a more attractive buy.
|
| Which then begs the question... why is this news? Large funds
| selling unprofitable companies isn't usually newsworthy outside
| of finance papers.
|
| The fact that we're reading about it at all almost implies it's
| nothing but virtue signalling.
| klyrs wrote:
| > Divesting from profitable companies is against the most
| important incentive of all (profit/money/value).
|
| I dunno, some might consider long term survival of the
| species more important.
| relax88 wrote:
| What does money represent but the value that humans ascribe
| to things?
|
| We aren't all willing to pay the same price for certain
| things, but we all know that we can get more of what we
| value by getting more money.
|
| Fighting against this is like trying to swim up a
| waterfall.
|
| This is why carbon taxation or cap and trade style policy
| is the the only scalable non-technical solution.
| munk-a wrote:
| I think your first line is pretty provably false - "Money
| can't buy you love" exists as a saying for a reason, some
| goods and services aren't translatable into monetary
| values so while money represents the value that humans
| ascribe to a lot of things it isn't all encompassing.
|
| And if you don't like the "soft" counter argument above
| then externalized costs also nibble away at an
| understanding that money represents the value we ascribe
| to costs.
|
| I do think that carbon taxation is probably the best
| resolution to pursue - bringing all those long ignored
| factors into the actual costs of goods forces the market
| to respond them - however other approaches to speed this
| process along (and bridge areas of the world where
| taxation is politically difficult) seems wise as well.
| relax88 wrote:
| It's definitely not false. The entire purpose of money to
| exchange human ascribed value across space and time.
|
| People try to buy love all the time, and if they could
| purchase the real thing they would likely pay a lot for
| it. Just because something isn't for sale doesn't mean
| it's value can't be compared relative to other things.
|
| How much would you personally be willing to pay to limit
| the warming of the Earth to 1.5C?
| wallacoloo wrote:
| > No amount of divesting is going to accomplish anything. It
| just makes profitable oil companies a more attractive buy.
|
| Are you certain? In a world of high P/E ratios across the
| board, profitability is achieved more via appreciation than
| via dividends. People (e.g. myself) shy away from investing
| in falling assets, even if their dividend yields are 1%
| higher than that of the stable or rising asset. Maybe those
| looking at a 15 year time horizon will see the value and buy
| despite this, but many people today see it as foolish to try
| to predict -- and therefore invest _solely_ for -- 15 years
| into the future. It's one of the reasons you don't see as
| much short selling as would be maximally profitable in
| bubbles, for example (eating a couple years of loss and
| hanging on until the windfall is tough -- not just
| psychologically, but also to your investors who expect
| consistent returns).
|
| I've seen arguments both ways though. Perhaps what's needed
| at this point is a study, or something with a more formal
| treatment of the numbers. But without those I don't think
| your view should be taken as conclusive.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| It looks to be a bunch of ordinary fund managers. Note that
| this isn't really a "maximizing returns" thing; the managers
| believe that increasing amounts of climate action will be
| required over the next couple of decades, so they want to check
| whether their companies can accommodate that while staying
| successful.
| buryat wrote:
| the full statement and the list of signers is here
|
| https://www.iigcc.org/download/investor-position-statement-v...
| buryat wrote:
| blackrock manages about $7T assets, and there're reports that
| investors and banks with more than $120T assets are looking
| to move into ESG assets
|
| https://finance.yahoo.com/news/blackrock-
| leading-120-trillio...
| teslabox wrote:
| I think volcanic winters deserve more preparation than the
| possibility that the climate scientists are right. If the climate
| scientists are right, it'll be a _slow moving disaster_ , and
| we'll have to gradually abandon all the buildings next to the
| ocean that will have to be abandoned anyways (e.g. Surfside
| Condos in Miami Florida collapsed because the life of reinforced
| concrete isn't much more than 100 years).
|
| 1816 was _The Year Without A Summer._ At the time people in
| Europe didn 't know why it didn't heat up that summer, but it was
| a catastrophe for humans who lived in the northern hemisphere, in
| every sense of the word.
|
| Catastrophe: an event causing great and often sudden damage or
| suffering; a disaster. "a national economic catastrophe"
|
| > The year 1816 is known as the Year Without a Summer because of
| severe climate abnormalities that caused average global
| temperatures to decrease by 0.4-0.7 degC (0.7-1 degF).[1] Summer
| temperatures in Europe were the coldest on record between the
| years of 1766-2000.[2] This resulted in major food shortages
| across the Northern Hemisphere.[3] > > Evidence suggests that the
| anomaly was predominantly a volcanic winter event caused by the
| massive 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in April in the Dutch East
| Indies (known today as Indonesia). This eruption was the largest
| in at least 1,300 years (after the hypothesized eruption causing
| the extreme weather events of 535-536), and perhaps exacerbated
| by the 1814 eruption of Mayon in the Philippines.
|
| - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer
|
| 1816 Summer in France was 3 degrees celcius cooler than average:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer#/media/F...
|
| How do you prepare for both a certain "volcanic winter"-type
| events (losing growing seasons in the northern latitudes) and the
| possibility of anthropogenic climate change?
|
| How many people would die if we had two volcanoes go off, in 2022
| and 2023, like what happened in 1814 and 1815?
|
| Volcanic Winter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter
|
| My understanding is the 1814 and 1815 volcanic eruptions reduced
| the amount of heat absorbed by the oceans [0]. By 1816 the oceans
| were super-chilly, and didn't have enough heat to give off for
| Europe to have a normal summer.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20013166
|
| Climate is variable. Deal with it. Volcanoes are much more of a
| threat to humans than slow moving disasters.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| "How do you prepare for both a certain "volcanic winter"-type
| events"
|
| Like we did for the past few hundred years - fill up a grain
| elevator. You store 2 years worth of grain, you get through any
| such event.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_elevator
|
| Also we have greenhouses.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I'd be curious what our modern food storage : population
| ratio is.
|
| I expect a lot lower than when yearly famines were a frequent
| occurrence.
| loopz wrote:
| The emergency storages have been mostly shut down
| everywhere due to unprofitability.
| abakker wrote:
| This is a very interesting perspective, but it is also
| something we are mostly unable to predict. It is certain that
| if this kind of event happened, that it would cause harm.
| However, the long term trend due to anthropogenic climate
| change is certainly a big risk.
|
| for one, volcanic induced winters don't seem to have the long-
| term ability to change the climate trajectory.
|
| The other is that the existence of additional risks does not
| absolve us of the responsibility to plan for the eventuality of
| climate change. there are billions of people on the planet and
| we as a species do have the capacity to think about and plan
| for both kinds of risk.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| "We want to virtue signal about addressing climate change and
| since we own equity in your company we want you to cash in on
| this marketing opportunity as well. Don't worry. There aren't any
| consequences if you don't follow through."
| relax88 wrote:
| Pretty much.
|
| The whole idea that people will divest from profitable
| industries is foolish. Some will virtue signal and cash in,
| some will divest, and where there is money to be made, others
| will profit. The demand for oil will be satisfied regardless.
|
| The real solution is to capture the externalized costs properly
| with a global carbon tax enforced via trade agreements and let
| the market sort it out.
| hogFeast wrote:
| They will divest. This depends on the PR situation where the
| company is. But if I was sitting on the board of an energy
| producer that was under real pressure (an example of this is
| Shell), my thought would be: right, am I going to have sell
| up in five years? If so, I am going to deal now because I can
| probably get a better price today, and I can realise pretty
| full value either returning all the capital or investing in
| clean energy.
|
| As you say though, the problem with this logic is that
| divesting does not change the demand for oil. By definition,
| anyone who divests cares about the issue. Which begs the
| question: if these companies are divesting then who are they
| selling to?
|
| Unfortunately, there is not a lot of careful thought going on
| here. Fund managers have been invaded, somehow, by people who
| believe that corporations are responsible for polluting...and
| if we somehow just punish/shame them enough, then pollution
| will stop (and I would say this is driven almost entirely by
| the psychology of individual managers and how they want other
| people to perceive them). This is not the case. And there is
| a real risk of things going very, very wrong.
|
| Btw, I don't think the question of virtue signalling is very
| relevant either. Societies operate through shame. Whether
| that is shaming someone for being a homosexual or shaming
| them for polluting. It is effective, and it is a huge
| incentive (bigger than profit). But the point is not to get
| confused between the joy that humans get from shaming
| others/elevating themselves, and actual progress. Climate
| change is the issue, demand for oil is the cause.
| relax88 wrote:
| Absolutely agree on your last point. I'm very concerned
| that most of the discussion on climate these days is driven
| by the joy of shaming others/elevating ourselves as opposed
| to actual progress.
| hogFeast wrote:
| I agree. Imo, 99.99% of public discussion is driven by
| this motive...but that is probably because 99.99% of
| public discussion is always driven by that motive. This
| is how people be.
|
| On this issue specifically though, I would say that it
| makes no sense to engage with oil companies. They aren't
| big polluters (even companies with large downstream
| chemical operations aren't particularly big polluters,
| not zero but not huge either). I understand why investors
| aren't engaging with China or Iran but one of the biggest
| coal-fired power plants in the world is owned by a
| publicly-listed Polish company. South Korea, India,
| Germany, Indonesia, even Russia...very little engagement.
| What about airlines? Fund managers, and the executives
| that are ferried in for meetings, are voracious users of
| intercontinental air travel...nothing? What about the
| pollution in electric battery production? What about US
| coal miners? It just seems, so far, that fund managers
| are going straight for the least important part of the
| system. I believe that investors should engage with these
| issues but there is relatively little careful thought
| (there are exceptions, Chris Hohn is one).
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