Five Questions Congress Should’ve Asked the Climate Cartel
19 hours ago Guest Blogger 19 Comments
By Matt Cole
My old employer CalPERS just suffered a humiliating defeat in its vote against Exxon’s board of directors. Its losing streak continued last week when the House Judiciary Committee grilled it over the Climate Action 100+ “climate cartel,” which helps pension funds like CalPERS coordinate with asset managers and non-profits to kill fossil fuels. CalPERS is the group’s brains and brawn, founding it and using its $500 billion weight to pressure companies like Exxon to fall in line. Here are five questions I wish Congress had asked it.
What is the investment case that cutting fossil fuel production will increase Exxon shareholders’ returns?
Interim CIO Dan Bienvenue began by asserting “Climate change is an existential risk” and answered questions about CalPERS’ anti-fossil fuel actions by repeating “Climate change is real.” Clearly, CalPERS wants to portray all opposition to its activism as disagreement with science itself. But there’s a long leap between the claim that climate change is real and the conclusion that producing less oil will make an oil company more money.
Scientists don’t say climate change is an existential risk: as one review of the research puts it, “a century of climate change is about as bad as losing a year of economic growth.” Ending fossil fuel use would cost an energy-starved world far more, especially as AI guzzles electricity. The argument that Exxon must destroy its business to save it is political, not financial. Congress could expose that if it pressed the activists for hard evidence instead of ceding them the scientific high ground.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/06/26/five-questions-congress-shouldve-asked-the-climate-cartel/
