From JoNova
JP Morgan, BlackRock drop out of climate banker cabal, and admit the Net Zero transition is “delayed”
In February three of the four largest financial houses in the world, left the giant financial cabal called“Climate 100+” (the fourth one left a year ago). BlackRock, JP Morgan and State Street all parted ways with the billionaire-club of philanthropists trying to bully the world into buying their own renewables. In the two months since then, two of their CEO’s have put out “letters to shareholders” predicting how the transition is going to be slower and harder and how we still need fossil fuels.
Suddenly everyone sounds like an energy skeptic.
There are lots of reasons for this shift:
1: US Republican States are pointing the “AntiTrust” gun at the billionaire banker club because it looks exactly like a monopolistic cabal doing its best to collude to reduce competition. The States are also firing up the fiduciary duty canon. Hence the bankers not only want to back away from the cabal, they want to sound like bankers that care about investing their clients funds.
2. The renewables bubble is deflating fast, and the CEO’s can see what’s coming. Think of their renewable energy passion a few years ago as a pump-n-dump scheme and it all makes more sense. Right now smart bankers are smoothing the exit ramp out of the bubble they created and hoping no one notices how wrong all their previous statements were.
3. Maybe there’s a point where smart banker billionaires realize they don’t want their own homeland to hit the skids. They’ve all made a fortune in the last four years, but who wants that fifth private jet if there is no homeland to come home too? Jamie Dimon astonished people when came out in January saying Trump’s policies were “kinda right”. Billionaires might want to visit China, but they don’t want to live there. And as I said at the time, maybe the wake up call was when the paratroopers-of-death dropped into a democracy and the Ivy league started cheering them on.
4. And besides, Trump might even win.
How times have changed
A year ago the CEO of the JP Morgan was calling for forced property seizure in a climate emergency:
Wall Street titan Jamie Dimon says seize private land for wind and solar builds
6 April 2023 10:29 GMT, Recharge
By Andrew Lee
One of the world’s highest-profile bankers – JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon – said the US government should consider seizing private property to boost the number of green energy projects coming through the pipeline. Dimon told the bank’s shareholders that availability of wind and solar projects needs to be accelerated urgently as “the window for action to avert the costliest impacts of global climate change is closing”.
This year we need a reality check:
JP Morgan Warns of Delay to Global Energy Transition
By Irina Slav, OilPrice, April 19th, 2024
Inflation, interest rates, and wars may well delay the energy transition by quite a long time, JP Morgan has warned in a call for “a reality check” on its shift from hydrocarbons to alternatives.
…the bank’s head of global energy strategy, Christyan Malek, … forecasts that governments will dial down the push to transition from oil and gas to wind and solar as their financial resources dwindle.
Jamie Dimon’s Letter to Shareholders in 2024, is a 30,000 word 70 page letter. Despite being a small book it mentions “climate” just 13 times. He’s now more concerned about China (18 mentions) and uses the word military 24 times. He criticizes the Inflation Reduction Act because it angered all the allies of the US and he argues the US should dig up gas and sell it for political gain as well as the money:
Trade is realpolitik, and the recent cancellation of future liquified natural gas (LNG) projects is a good example of this fact. The projects were delayed mainly for political reasons — to pacify those who believe that gas is bad and that oil and gas projects should simply be stopped. This is not only wrong but also enormously naïve. One of the best ways to reduce CO2 for the next few decades is to use gas to replace coal. When oil and gas prices skyrocketed last winter, nations around the world — wealthy and very climate-conscious nations like France, Germany and the Netherlands, as well as lower-income nations like Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam that could not afford the higher cost — started to turn back to their coal plants. This highlights the importance of safe, secure and affordable energy. Second, the export of LNG is a great economic boon for the United States. But most important is the realpolitik goal: Our allied nations that need secure and affordable energy resources, including critical nations like Japan, Korea and most of our European allies, would like to be able to depend on the United States for energy. This now puts them in a difficult position — they may have to look elsewhere for such supplies, turning to Iran, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates or maybe even Russia. We need to minimize anything that can tear at our economic bonds with our allies.
The strength of our domestic production of energy gives us a “power advantage” — cheaper and more reliable energy, which creates economic and geopolitical advantages.
Meanwhile Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the largest asset fund in the world, has undergone a very similar transformation. In 2021, he was raving how the existential crisis and how this was the beginning of a long and rapidly accelerating transition:
Larry Fink’s letter to CEO’s 2021
I believe that the pandemic has presented such an existential crisis – such a stark reminder of our fragility – that it has driven us to confront the global threat of climate change more forcefully and to consider how, like the pandemic, it will alter our lives. It has reminded us how the biggest crises, whether medical or environmental, demand a global and ambitious response.
…I believe that this is the beginning of a long but rapidly accelerating transition – one that will unfold over many years and reshape asset prices of every type. We know that climate risk is investment risk.
But now, after the bubble came and went, now he’s telling us energy security is just as important as the climate crisis:
Oil, gas needed for years: BlackRock’s Larry Fink says in annual [2024] letter
By Eric Johnston, March 27, 2024, The Australian Business Review
One of the world’s most influential investors has said the switch is on to “energy pragmatism” that recognises energy security is just as important in the move to net zero. Larry Fink of the $US10 trillion ($15.3 trillion) BlackRock has acknowledged the world will need to rely on oil and gas “for years to come” through the uneven energy transition.
… his letter … which runs to almost 30 pages, only mentions climate change in passing and the discussion is limited to strategies under way in the energy transition.
Larry Fink’s letter to investors in 2024 didn’t even mention ESG.
These are the levers of power you see shifting. BlackRock manages $10 trillion dollars in assets, and according to Jamie Dimon’s letter, JP Morgan was managing assets of $7.6 trillion. When these men write long letters, Wall Street studies them.
A lot of people have suddenly started to say in April that “we always knew the transition would be expensive” — the phase change is following the bankers.
