Weekly ESG clippings #51 - climate safety, record low CO2, warming locally, collapsing solar, subsidizing expensively, bleeding ESG, banning DEI, demanding oil

For one year we have been writing to a Canadian mutual fund company executive, exchanging ideas. We hope the exec has been finding a little time to compare how the scientific and economic literature contrast sharply with the most common issue associated with ESG: the idea of a dangerous, man-made, carbon-dioxide induced global warming. Last year in the fund company's corporate ESG report almost all the shareholder proposals and engagements the company was involved with related to carbon dioxide and its consequences - astonishing considering it is the gas of life on Earth... 

Our contention from the start has been that it appears no one at the company has done a proper, full-context due diligence on the facts underlying the ideas of dangerous man-made climate change, net zero, energy transition, sustainability, and similar terms. Thus, the company has, in marketing materials, product launches, and internal policies, adopted provably false ideas that in the long run can only harm the company when the truth eventually wins out. So far, we can detect no evidence that such due diligence is being done, is even considered, and might not even be welcomed. 

Fortunately, the money managers have adopted a more full-context and rational analysis, and ESG-related ideas do not appear to have damaged their abilities yet. We will continue to monitor them for such concerns, as this would be truly alarming to me. 

This week:

SCIENCE
• Empirical evidence of declining global vulnerability to climate-related hazards
• GEOCARBSULF: A combined model for Phanerozoic atmospheric O2 and CO2, referenced at ClimateMovie Fact Check: Prehistoric CO2 levels
• The Detection and Attribution of Northern Hemisphere Land Surface Warming (1850–2018) in Terms of Human and Natural Factors: Challenges of Inadequate Data
• Top 10 sinking cities - are humans to blame?
INVESTMENT/ECONOMICS
• German solar industry collapsing: unable to make solar panels from solar power
• Trillions in taxpayer subsidies haven’t made wind and solar power cheaper or better for Americans
• 5 ways to attack the climate crisis
• Actively Managed Funds ‘Bleed’ Client Cash in ESG Upheaval
• Berkshire shareholders reject climate, diversity, China proposals
• MIT becomes first elite university to ban diversity statements
• Norway's oil demand steady despite rise to EV superpower, UBS says
• When the Only Problem Was Climate Change
ABSURDITIES
• European summers will be hotter than predicted because of cleaner air

SCIENCE 

Empirical evidence of declining global vulnerability to climate-related hazards "Results show a clear decreasing trend in both human and economic vulnerability, with global average mortality and economic loss rates that have dropped by 6.5 and nearly 5 times, respectively, from 1980–1989 to 2007–2016. We further show a clear negative relation between vulnerability and wealth, which is strongest at the lowest income levels. This has led to a convergence in vulnerability between higher and lower income countries. Yet, there is still a considerable climate hazard vulnerability gap between poorer and richer countries."

Our take: for people who place human life and flourishing at the top of their standard of value, the world has become amazingly better and safer thanks to the energy from fossil fuels.

GEOCARBSULF: A combined model for Phanerozoic atmospheric O2 and CO2, referenced at ClimateMovie Fact Check: Prehistoric CO2 levels. "Note that “RCO2” on the vertical axis means the CO2 level relative to the mean of the past million years. So R=5 means 5 times the CO2 level of the most recent era. And “Ma” means “Millions of years ago”. The source for this chart is the peer-reviewed scientific study Berner, R. (2006) “A combined model for Phanerozoic atmospheric O2 and CO2 Geochimica” (aka doi:10.1016/j.gca.2005.11.032) which is available here. And what does the chart show?

"From 400 million years backwards nature enjoyed CO2 levels between 10 and 25 times higher than present. From about 250 million to 350 million years ago CO2 levels were close to the present, then over the past 200 million years they have been between 2 and 10 times higher than the present. They are currently exceptionally low on a geological time scale. That means most of the critters around us, including sea creatures, evolved under conditions in which CO2 levels were far higher. Whatever we are doing to add CO2 to the atmosphere, it’s nothing that the natural world hasn’t seen already."

Our take: if you asked 100 people who think atmospheric CO2 represents a danger to human life and the rest of life on the planet "how does present CO2 compare to the value in the last 600 million years?" what percentage would correctly guess that it is at or near an all-time low? 

The Detection and Attribution of Northern Hemisphere Land Surface Warming (1850–2018) in Terms of Human and Natural Factors: Challenges of Inadequate Data "A statistical analysis was applied to Northern Hemisphere land surface temperatures (1850–2018) to try to identify the main drivers of the observed warming since the mid-19th century. Two different temperature estimates were considered—a rural and urban blend (that matches almost exactly with most current estimates) and a rural-only estimate. The rural and urban blend indicates a long-term warming of 0.89 °C/century since 1850, while the rural-only indicates 0.55 °C/century. This contradicts a common assumption that current thermometer-based global temperature indices are relatively unaffected by urban warming biases."

"Our analysis focused on the Northern Hemispheric land component of global surface temperatures since this is the most data-rich component. It reveals that important challenges remain for the broader detection and attribution problem of global warming: (1) urbanization bias remains a substantial problem for the global land temperature data; (2) it is still unclear which (if any) of the many TSI time series in the literature are accurate estimates of past TSI; (3) the scientific community is not yet in a position to confidently establish whether the warming since 1850 is mostly human-caused, mostly natural, or some combination. Suggestions for how these scientific challenges might be resolved are offered."

Our take: one more of many studies showing that global warming is much less than global, and instead is in good part due to the urban heat island effect.

Top 10 sinking cities - are humans to blame? "In our latest “Fact Check” video “The Fate of Atlantis”, we look at the Top 10 sinking cities in the world and find that humans are generally to blame… but not because we emit CO2 that heats the planet and raises sea levels."

INVESTMENT/ECONOMICS

German solar industry collapsing: unable to make solar panels from solar power "About 90% of solar panels installed in Germany come from China, and earlier this year one of the last solar panel manufacturers closed in Germany. Last week, what was left of the industry begged for mercy (and subsidies) which they didn’t get. Now another German solar panel manufacturer has closed down. For some cruel reason German factories which are close to their customers, can’t compete with distant foreign factories which have access to slave labor, fossil fueled shipping and cheap coal fired electricity?
"Solar panels are now in the “top five” worst slave industries in the world, yet still barely any of the morality-police care. They’re apparently too busy atoning for slavery they didn’t cause that doesn’t exist anymore to worry about slaves that are alive today."

Our take: offshoring the dirty work is nothing new.

Trillions in taxpayer subsidies haven’t made wind and solar power cheaper or better for Americans "Wind and solar energy only produce power when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. The rest of the time, their electricity is infinitely expensive and a backup system is needed. This is why global electricity remains almost two-thirds reliant on fossil fuels — and why we, on current trends, are an entire century away from eliminating fossil fuels from electricity generation.

"It is often reported that large, emerging industrial powers like China, India, Indonesia and Bangladesh are getting more power from solar and wind. But these countries get much more additional power from coal. Last year, China got more additional power from coal than it did from solar and wind. India got three times as much, while Bangladesh got 13 times more coal electricity than it did from green energy sources, and Indonesia an astonishing 90 times more. If solar and wind really were cheaper, why would these countries miss out? Because reliability matters."

5 ways to attack the climate crisis "It is crystal clear to many people that we are living in a time of climate crisis caused in large part by the burning of fossil fuels , which lead to the emission of greenhouse gasses that trap the sun’s heat, raising temperatures and leading to a cascade of unintended and unwanted consequences.

Our take: it is shocking how facile some people are, and how unthinking are media that write and publish climate policy related articles. Read the article and see how shallow, how devoid of facts from science and economics it is, the platitudes it uses.

Actively Managed Funds ‘Bleed’ Client Cash in ESG Upheaval " A long-held truism of ESG is being challenged, namely the idea that the strategy is best-suited to active fund management. For 11 of the past 12 quarters, clients have redeemed cash from actively managed funds registered as “promoting” environmental, social and governance goals, otherwise known as Article 8 under European Union regulations. The data, provided by Morningstar Inc., indicates a recalibration is underway in an investing form that from the get-go was supposed to favor the active selection and de-selection of assets."

Our take: this article exaggerates the degree of bleeding, but just imagine when most of the population becomes more aware of the false claims of climate alarmists...

Berkshire shareholders reject climate, diversity, China proposals "By margins of more than 4-to-1, shareholders at Berkshire's annual meeting voted against two proposals that the company's insurance and energy operations disclose more about their efforts to address climate change including greenhouse gas emissions.

Our take: Warren Buffet's company remains mostly rational, good for them.

MIT becomes first elite university to ban diversity statements "Such requirements have long been controversial, and the basic argument against them is simple: “diversity, equity, and inclusion” has come to connote a set of controversial views about identity, power, and oppression. Universities which require scholars to “demonstrate” their “commitment” to DEI can easily invite ideological screening, as well as potentially unlawful viewpoint discrimination. Many groups thus oppose the diversity statements on the grounds of academic freedom and free expression."

Our take: good for them, let's hope this is the start of a wave or return to merit and rationality.

Norway's oil demand steady despite rise to EV superpower, UBS says "Norway leads zero-emission car sales, but surprisingly that hasn't left a big dent in the electric car superpower's appetite for oil, suggesting that calls on peak oil are premature. In January, a record 92.1% of all new cars sold were purely electric in Norway, UBS said in Wednesday note, a trend that has been gaining momentum since the rise in EV sales in 2010. But so far, the impact on oil demand in Norway "has been negligible," UBS adds, noting the plunge gasoline demand has been more than offset by other oil products.

"Norway's steady appetite for oil serves as a reminder that rising zero-emission car sales may not lead to an immediate fall in oil demand, UBS says, reiterating its view that global oil demand has not yet peaked."

Our take: this phenomenon is well-known in economics, that when you find a way to gain efficiency the demand for energy does not decline, but rather it enables new ways to use it to improve life.

When the Only Problem Was Climate Change "Proponents of climate action advocated ending reliance on the fossil fuels that had powered two centuries of astonishing growth. These activists conceded that this would cost hundreds of trillions of dollars but insisted that massive renewable-energy growth was in the pipeline. This would be the last great push to a glorious future. "How naive. Time hasn’t been kind to the idea that climate change was humanity’s last problem or that the planet would unite to solve it. A rapid global transition from fossil fuels is, and always has been, impossible. There are several reasons that make it so."

Our take: pointing out naivetes is one of Lomborg's strengths. By putting things in the full context we can more clearly see and prioritize problems. Climate alarmists are well-known for avoiding full context, no naturally they despise Lomborg.

ABSURDITIES

European summers will be hotter than predicted because of cleaner air - By ignoring declining air pollution, regional climate models have greatly underestimated how hot Europe's summers and heatwaves will become.