Energy & Environment — GOP officials take aim at green investment rules
Republicans at the national and state level are targeting environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing. Also, a new study has a warning on marine life, and a Senate candidate has a… fresh perspective on climate change.
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Republicans go after environmental investing rules
A groundswell of Republicans in states across the U.S. are waging a war against environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing, framing the fight against the economic strategy as a stance against what they call liberal policies interfering in the free market.
Prominent GOP figures including former Vice President Mike Pence and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, both potential 2024 contenders, have latched onto the issue.
What is ESG? ESG investing requires investors to make capital decisions based not only on likely financial return, but also with an eye on the company’s impact on the environment, wider society and its own employees.
The state perspective: But so have state-level Republicans, who are implementing restrictions that blacklist certain firms from doing business with their state, usually because of what they perceive as unfavorable stances toward an industry that is the main driver of the global crisis of climate change: fossil fuel.
“I am leading the charge on this, but there is an army behind me,” West Virginia State Treasurer Riley Moore said in an interview with The Hill.
In July, Moore barred five of the largest banks in the country, including BlackRock and Goldman Sachs, from receiving state banking contracts. He says the banks are involved in “boycotts of fossil fuel companies” — a notion both companies denied.
Goldman touted in a letter to the state that month the more than $118 billion it had given to fossil fuel companies since 2016. A Blackrock spokesperson told The Hill the bank does not boycott energy companies.
“We disagree with Treasurer Moore’s determination,” the spokesperson said. “We do not pursue divestment from sectors and industries as a policy.”
The other side: Climate activists are quick to point out that the banks continue to be major financial backers of fossil fuels. Ben Cushing, campaign manager of the Sierra Club’s Fossil-Free Finance campaign, said “Wall Street is the largest center of fossil fuel financing in the world.”
Cushing characterized the front against ESG investing as the GOP realizing that the free market is moving away from fossil fuels, with coal and oil company-backed politicians trying to stop the trend.
“This bizarre notion that banks are ‘boycotting’ fossil fuels is really just a talking point cooked up by right wing politicians and the fossil fuel industry to prevent the free market from moving against them,” Cushing said.
Read more from The Hill’s Stephen Neukam.
Marine species at risk of extinction from emissions
Maintaining the status quo for greenhouse gas emissions could risk the extinction of up to 90 percent of marine species, according to a study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Researchers, led by ecologist Daniel Boyce of the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Nova Scotia, looked at some 25,000 species, including animals, plants, protozoans and bacteria. Under a high-emission scenario, they determined that nearly 90 percent of those species will be at high-to-critical risk across 85 percent of their distribution. This scenario involves an increase of 3 to 5 degrees Celsius in global ocean temperatures by the end of the century.
About 10 percent of the ocean overall features ecosystems that are considered high-risk based on a combination of endemism, climate risk and the threat of local species’ extinction, according to the study.
And that’s not all: In addition to the threat this poses to biodiversity around the planet, the results of the study present a major threat to people in the global south, with the biggest danger to species native to low-income countries that rely heavily on fisheries in the tropics and subtropics, according to Boyce and his colleagues.
Meanwhile, reduced emissions — those consistent with the Paris Climate Agreement’s goals of keeping warming below 2 degrees — would cut the risk for about 98.2 percent of the analyzed species, according to the study.
The analysis is based on a combination of 12 climate risk factors. Boyce and his team grouped them under the broader categories of sensitivity, exposure and adaptivity.
Read more about the study here.
Herschel Walker blasts climate bill over trees
Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker (R) reiterated his opposition to Democrats’ climate, health care and taxes bill over the weekend, arguing that too much of the money is “going to trees.”
“They continue to try to fool you like they are helping you out. But they’re not. They’re not helping you out because a lot of money, it’s going to trees,” Walker said, according to a clip of his remarks that was shared with The Hill.
“Don’t we have enough trees around here?” he added, in comments that were first reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
He instead called for spending more money on law enforcement and complained about funding for the IRS.
The legislation, which has nearly $370 billion in spending on climate and energy programs and was signed into law by President Biden last week, puts $1.5 billion toward the Urban and Community Forestry Assistance program, which plants trees in urban areas.
Experts say that planting trees can improve both climate change and health outcomes when planted in urban spaces.
“If you were to plant millions of trees, which is what many countries want to do … we’d be removing a significant amount of carbon,” said Paul Falkowski, a professor at Rutgers University in the Earth and planetary sciences and marine and coastal sciences departments.
“Urban tree planting is very, very productive in the sense that it increases the trade, it increases the flux of moisture in the local environment, which decreases the temperature,” Falkowski added.
Read more about Walker’s remarks here.
WHAT WE’RE READING
New Mexico fails to buy key component for emergency warning sirens (The Santa Fe New Mexican)
How a top US business lobby promised climate action – but worked to block efforts (The Guardian)
These celebrities are accused of drought restriction violations (The Los Angeles Times)
‘There’s simply not enough water’: Colorado River cutbacks ripple across Arizona (The Arizona Republic)
📺 Lighter click: John Oliver on carbon offsets
That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Energy & Environment page for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you tomorrow.
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