Wednesday, April 29, 2015

The Guardian Newspaper Is Not A Contrary Indicator On Hydrocarbon Divestment Timing

The Guardian has gone into full "Do as I say" mode.

On Monday FT Alphaville (very) bravely dipped a toe into the muck that is the 2°/stranded asset/divestment argument in the run up to the Paris climate shindig later this year. One of these days I'll get around to the story of how was 2° chosen. And maybe tell the tale of what happened when the pressure groups went to the SEC.

From FT Alphaville:
The Guardian as contrarian indicator
You’ve got to hand it to Alan Rusbridger: he’s a great contrarian indicator. The editor of The Guardian launched his valedictory campaign to demand divestment from fossil fuels with a wrap-around promotion and the paper’s full moral force.

This was terribly nice of Mr Rusbridger. Investors, he explained, should sell their shares in oil, coal and others digging up nasty carbon-based fuels, because they weren’t really worth as much as everyone thought; they would never be allowed to use all their reserves, because it would cause the end of the world (or serious global warming, anyway).

The usually left-wing Guardian was going out of its way to help the plutocrats make money, a job usually reserved for us here at the FT.
By supporting these companies, investors not only continue to fund unsustainable business models that are bound to make climate change worse, but they also risk their financial assets becoming worthless if international agreements on climate change are met.
Investors should have listened, thanked Mr Rusbridger, and done the exact opposite. It turned out he was a perfect contrarian indicator. He picked a six-year bottom in the US benchmark oil price, West Texas Intermediate. He lit a carbon-based bonfire under crude prices: WTI’s now up 30 per cent, the biggest rally over such a short period since 2009 (and before that, 2002)....MUCH MORE
As it turns out, The  Guardian itself has not divested any hydrocarbons from its pension plans and has in all probability been adding to the position (as a function of re-balancing). Here's a Guardian podcast transcript via MyTranscriptBox:

Source: The Guardian
URL: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/audio/2015/mar/27/podcast-biggest-story-climate-change-campaign-episode3-audio
Date: 27/03/2015
Event: The Biggest Story: Episode 3: The Targets
Credit: The Guardian
Also see:

People:
  • Alex Breuer: Creative Director, the Guardian
  • Aleks Krotoski: Broadcaster, presenter of Guardian podcast Tech Weekly
  • Bill McKibben: Environmentalist, author and journalist
  • Amanda Michel: Open editor, the Guardian US
  • James Randerson: Assistant national news edior, the Guardian
  • Alan Rusbridger: Editor-in-chief, the Guardian
  • Adam Vaughan: Editor, the Guardian environment site
"...Amanda Michel: You know, there are big questions about asking people to do something that we ourselves have not done.

Aleks Krotoski: What Amanda is talking about is sorting out the Guardian's own pots of money, their investments.

Amanda Michel: It will seem like hypocrisy.

Alan Rusbridger: We have about £600 million invested at the moment, and I don't think our fund managers could say exactly how much was invested in fossil fuel. But it is there, we haven't said that it shouldn't be, so we have got money invested. And so, if we're going to be calling on people to divest, people are bound to ask "Well, is that what the Guardian's going to do?"..."
The above is good for a tee-hee but that's about all.
Whether or not any of this makes any difference to the earth is the question, and the question that should be asked to separate out actions that will actually make a difference from those that are just posturing is:
"How much will this policy prescription lower the temperature of the planet?"
In degrees, please.
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