FOTOTHERM

An 80% weasel coefficient Some activists, recently had a conversation with representatives of  TIAA  to try to persuade them to divest from fossil fuels.  The conversation was mostly cordial, but predictably did not get anywhere. One of the activists summed up the response from TIAA as “a non-response with a weasel coefficient of at least 80%.”  Regarding the weasel coefficient, he also asked:  Can anyone explain to me what “our overarching strategy which targets climate-risk adjusted returns over the long-term” means in plain English?  Well, yes.  Yes I can. Climate risk adjusted returns When an investment manager says she is targeting “climate risk adjusted returns,” she is saying: Climate change is real, and it presents real risks which will impact investment returns. Those climate risks are knowable, and she has useful estimates of how those risks affect companies. She will use that knowledge to make money for her clients over the long term while n...

[...] The anti-climate policies that the GWPF ( Global Warming Policy Foundation )  has pushed for years have contributed to the droughts, storms and surging temperatures that have killed people and destroyed livelihoods. Yet now they pretend to be Africa’s saviours, seeking out new markets for the ever more desperate coal industry. And coal barons are not alone: European-produced petrol, so dirty and polluting that it can’t be sold there, is being  dumped on to the Nigerian market . [...]  African prosperity will not come by it being shackled to the outdated dirty energy infrastructure of the past. Rather than trudging behind in the 50-year-old footsteps of European countries, Africa needs to leapfrog to the clean, cheap and renewable technologies of the future. This is how Africa will catch up with its global neighbours.  Africa  is blessed with more sun, wind and geothermal energy than anywhere else on the planet, but that fact does not help the GWPF or ...

[...]  Technology can help farmers not only sustain, but thrive. Solar is an essential part of this new dynamic. [...] Today (allowing for the impact the coronavirus pandemic has temporarily placed on the process) the global exchange of agricultural goods is done with an ease and speed that would’ve been unimaginable in bygone eras. But this too has often placed a new pressure on farmers. Unquestionably, some have benefited—and benefited massively from such a change—as farms that produce world-class “clean and green” goods now have a truly international market to export to. But for those who sell more routine goods, or find the international market has saturated their domestic audience with the same products they sell, the path to maintaining a steady profit year in and year out has become much harder. It’s anticipated the years ahead will see the world become more unstable as a result of numerous factors, not the least of which the growing threat of climate change....