Weekly clippings #6 - social cost of carbon, carbon calculation, business risk, climate finance

 Here is my latest subset of scientific and economic/investment news that shows how your company's push into ESG is in error and must lead to greater business and reputational risks.

Science -  The Social Cost of Carbon game - Estimates of the SCC championed by Guilbeault are not science. This article by a renowned Canadian expert on climate matters shows how badly off-track is the notion that carbon dioxide has a social cost, never mind one that offsets the massive benefits of associated energy production. It is also a good case study in discerning how such ideas get so far away from reality and then become popular.

Welfare in the 21st century: Increasing development, reducing inequality, the impact of climate change, and the cost of climate policies – This is a fantastic must-read piece of work by the world-renowned Bjorn Lomborg, author of the book I just sent you, and explains how most current climate policies are massively destructive while the best policy is actually the development of new energy technologies.

Investment/economics: The carbon calculation conundrum - mutual fund company article. I have written some comments in my copy, trying to highlight the deep flaws in such communications and the internal processes that have led to them.  One of my comments is “Here we see some deep diligence being done on the calculation of carbon dioxide emissions while ignoring the scientific literature showing that such emissions have no material impact on global temperature or climate. A different kind of due diligence is clearly needed.”

When it comes to ESG, fund managers damned if they do and damned if they don’t “These conflicting ideological trends represent a strategic complication for fund managers, a growing business risk, and a rising credit risk, Moody’s said.” 

Absurdity: What has climate finance paid for? Gelato shops, a coal plant and more  Countries are not required to report project details. The descriptions they disclose are often vague or non-existent — so much so that in thousands of cases, they don't even identify the country where the money went.

The world continues to be awash in demonstrably false information relating to the global warming scare and this has penetrated deeply into the investment world through thoroughly flawed ESG ideology. My goal in these letters continues to be pointing out how easy it is to see the errors and the damage they are doing when you look at the full context, avoid bias, and hold human life as the standard of value. One day, hopefully sooner rather than later, fund companies will want to take down most of their literature relating to ESG due to many errors and inconsistencies, and I hope to accelerate the coming of that day.

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