ESG leads to increased energy cost
Rising energy prices and pressure from Republican lawmakers are blunting some of the momentum behind the corporate push toward environmental, social, and governance principles, which in general favor investment in green energy over fossil fuels.
Green groups and other ESG backers have made headway in shaping the investment environment in recent years, including since President Joe Biden's inauguration. At the same time, record fuel prices have driven the Biden administration and other governments with green ambitions to encourage more investment in oil and gas, and with red states threatening to cut ties with ESG-focused fund managers, a number of such firms have been more aggressively defending their fossil fuel-related investments and promising more.
Financial giant BlackRock, which manages a $10 trillion asset portfolio and has been a face of the corporate ESG push, is one of the firms Republican leaders in Texas and West Virginia have called out by name when justifying efforts to restrict state investments in businesses that sever ties with fossil fuel companies.
In February, as Texas prepared to roll out its new law to that end, BlackRock executives wrote officials and industry leaders in the top energy-producing state to ensure that the firm would "continue to invest in and support fossil fuel companies." The letter also cited holdings in Texas-based oil giants such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips.
Weeks earlier, BlackRock joined a $15.5 billion venture to purchase a stake in a firm that controls Saudi natural gas pipelines.
Chairman and CEO Larry Fink defended the decision, saying in December that “responsibly-managed natural gas infrastructure has a meaningful role to play in this transition,” which is similar to the case many Republicans and industry groups make in favor of natural gas.
Other firms have set out to prove their oil and gas credentials to Texas, including JPMorgan Chase. Stacey Friedman, the firm's executive vice president and general counsel, said JPMorgan Chase offers products and services to fossil fuel ventures and "intend[s] to do so in the future."
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Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and a prominent venture capitalist, has railed against the movement toward ESG. During a conference on Bitcoin in Miami earlier this year, he defended cryptocurrency and trashed finance leaders such as Warren Buffett, Jamie Dimon, and Larry Fink for their embrace of ESG investing principles.
“The finance gerontocracy that runs the country through whatever silly virtue signaling slash hate-factory term like ESG they have, versus what I would call, what we have to think of as a revolutionary youth movement,” the billionaire said.
Thiel, who has recently pumped millions of dollars into the campaigns of conservative populists such as J.D. Vance in his successful bid for the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in Ohio, went on to say that he believes companies with ties to Bitcoin are being targeted by ESG firms.
“Perhaps the real enemy is ESG,” Thiel quipped.
Thiel isn’t the only tech billionaire speaking out against the growth of the ESG movement and its place in the financial ecosystem.
Tesla founder Elon Musk, who is attempting to purchase Twitter, has recently been harshly criticizing ESG, going so far as to say he is becoming increasingly convinced that “corporate ESG is the Devil Incarnate.”
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ESG is another investment mistake being pushed by Big Green. Rather than develop alternative energy, they seek to block the main source of current energy. That is just nuts and it harms the US national security and the US economy. It is as self-defeating as Biden's "transition" to nowhere energy policy. It has totally failed to result in new energy sources to replace fossil fuels.
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