#COP24 :: Tackle climate or face financial crash, say world's biggest investors

UN summit urged to end all coal burning and introduce substantial taxes on emissions

Global investors managing $32tn issued a stark warning to governments at the UN climate summit on Monday, demanding urgent cuts in carbon emissions and the phasing out of all coal burning. Without these, the world faces a financial crash several times worse than the 2008 crisis, they said.

The investors include some of the world’s biggest pension funds, insurers and asset managers and marks the largest such intervention to date. They say fossil fuel subsidies must end and substantial taxes on carbon be introduced.

Ministers arrive at the UN climate summit in Katowice, Poland, on Monday for its crucial second week, when the negotiations on turning the vision of the Paris agreement into reality reach a critical point, with finance for fighting global warming a key area of dispute.

“The long-term nature of the challenge has, in our view, met a zombie-like response by many,” said Chris Newton, of IFM Investors which manages $80bn and is one of the 415 groups that has signed the Global Investor Statement. “This is a recipe for disaster as the impacts of climate change can be sudden, severe and catastrophic…”

more: Tackle climate or face financial crash, say world's biggest investors | Environment | The Guardian

#COP24 :: Largest ever group of global investors call for more action to meet Paris targets

The group of 414 institutional investors with $31 trillion under management say governments must take serious steps to cut emissions

The 414 global investors - which represent US$31 trillion of assets-under-management - say they are deeply concerned about the “ambition gap” that exists between governments’ commitments and what is needed to limit the global temperature increase to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels.

They say that gap is increasing the physical risks from climate change and hampering investors’ ability to properly allocate trillions of dollars needed to support the much-needed transition to a low carbon economy.

They have signed a “Global Investor Statement” to be handed to world leaders this week at the COP24 - the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Poland…

more: Largest ever group of global investors call for more action to meet Paris targets | Environment | The Guardian

Scott Pruitt is unlike any former EPA chief - Business Insider

The first months of the Trump administration have brought a rare blizzard of news about the Environmental Protection Agency.

Scott Pruitt, at the helm, has taken an unusually public role for an EPA chief. He makes news regularly with press appearances and regulatory decisions that sometime seem bizarre for a regulator charged with the safety of America's environment. And he arrived at a moment of apparent turmoil for the EPA.

There were days of press silence from the agency starting as soon as Trump took office. A former transition official, Myron Ebell, gave interviews in which he suggested the agency's staff and budget would be cut to a third of its size. Rumors flew, including the suggestion that Trump intended to ban science at the agency and scrub climate data from its servers. Trump's transition head emailed employees to tell them he had no idea what the president's plans were.

Those plans eventually cleared up, to the tune of a proposed 32% budget cut that Pruitt publicly supported. (That proposal never made it in to Congress's budget agreement, however.)

The public seems to have noticed all the turmoil. Since Trump won the 2016 presidential election, Business Insider readers have shown a renewed interest in environmental coverage. In March, a Gallup poll found that 57% percent of Americans think Trump is doing a "poor" job protecting the environment, a far worse ranking than George W. Bush or Barack Obama received in their first years.

All of which made us wonder: As he approaches his 100-day mark in late May, how unusual has Pruitt's short tenure at the agency really been?

more: Scott Pruitt is unlike any former EPA chief - Business Insider

▶ The Entire World Needs To Hear This | Woody Harrelson

The Entire World Needs To Hear This - YouTube

Published on May 1, 2016 by Awareness Act

A Lesson to the World by Woody Harrelson

Investing in the Climate Revolution — Natural Resources Defense Council — Medium

Investing in the Climate Revolution

A new publicly traded index fund will be the first to invest only in S&P 500 companies that don’t own fossil-fuel reserves.

With the opening of the Paris climate talks this week, President Obama joined leaders from 150 other nations to affirm an historic global pivot. The world is moving away from the dirty fossil fuels that drive climate change and toward the cleaner, smarter energy options that can power our future without threatening our kids...

Investing in the Climate Revolution — Natural Resources Defense Council — Medium

https://medium.com/natural-resources-defense-council




http://www.nrdc.org

Chris Hedges Interviews Kevin Zeese On The TPP | PopularResistance.Org

The Greatest Corporate Power Grab In US History

CHRIS HEDGES, HOST, DAYS OF REVOLT: Hi. I’m Chris Hedges. Welcome to Days of Revolt.
Today we’re going to be discussing trade agreements such as the TPP, which Ralph Nader calls “the most brazen corporate power grab in American history”. We’ll be talking with attorney Kevin Zeese, a former Green Party candidate in Maryland for the Senate, and one of the leaders of Popular Resistance.
Welcome, Kevin.
ZEESE: Thanks for having me on...

more: Chris Hedges Interviews Kevin Zeese On The TPP | PopularResistance.Org

Michigan energy efficiency standard netted $4B in savings | Utility Dive

Dive Brief:

A new report on efficiency in Michigan shows that for every dollar spent on reducing energy waste consumers are seeing $4.38 in benefits -- the highest level since 2010, Midwest Energy News reports. 

The report, released by the state's Public Service Commission, estimates that  the program's $1.1 billion in expenditures has saved customers $4.2 billion since 2010. 

Efficiency measures installed last year were expected to save over 1.4 million MWh and more than 4.8 million Mcf of natural gas...

read: Michigan energy efficiency standard netted $4B in savings | Utility Dive

Big business declares war on science: The secret story of the Chamber of Commerce’s battle against the environment, global warming action

Driven by a fervor for profit and an anti-government frenzy, the Chamber is a fighting force for the 1 percent 

by ALYSSA KATZ

"...Caterpillar, Duke Energy, General Electric, PG&E, Dow Chemical, Alcoa, DuPont—-the inaugural membership of the Climate Action Partnership had much in common with the list of Chamber board members past and present..."

"...once environmentalists started looking at what the Chamber was actually saying in its case to the EPA, they were flummoxed. It wasn’t just calling for a showdown over issues where scientists hadn’t yet reached consensus or where there was a case to be made for the benefits of rising temperatures. The Chamber was literally demanding that settled science be opened for debate, with testimony from industry consultants contending that the oceans were not, in fact, turning more acidic or rising as polar ice melted..."

Excerpted from "The Influence Machine: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Corporate Capture of American Life"

more at salon.com

Rapidly growing appeal of renewable energy, for institutional investors

Institutional Investor Appetite For Renewable Energy, Forbes.com, Christopher P Skroupa, 12 June 15 “…..Richard Rankin: Most people do not know how substantial renewable energy is or that, in a global context, renewable energy is competitive with and can replace conventional energy entirely.

more: Rapidly growing appeal of renewable energy, for institutional investors | Antinuclear