GFANZ: “The Glasgow Finance Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) was launched in April and chaired by the UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance, Mark Carney, a former governor of the Bank of England and the Finance Adviser of the United Kingdom Prime Minister for COP26. Now consisting of more than 450 banks, insurers and investment managers from 45 countries (..) “It includes such familiar names as BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, Bank of America, HSBC, Goldman Sachs, and the like. The total assets of the GFANG members is about $130 trillion, with $63 trillion coming from banks, $57 trillion from investment managers and $10 trillion from asset owners such as pension funds “

clarification “the Lex team of the Financial Times intervened and clarified that $130 trillion is not ready funds but the total assets managed by member financial institutions of the GFANZ”

so much boasting, little less substantial committments, it is clearly a bait for governments who do not want to pay the polical costs of decarbonization at home, so would accept a “helping hand” from investors. Quotes from this great article Climate crisis, global debt, and the Fermi paradox – a proposal to the IMF

So, where is the catch ? Private investors in GFANZ want to get government guarantees in order to “derisk” their own investments, so social risk and private gain, something we have already heard of, think global crisis in 2008. Derisking is punt under the spotlight by economist Daniela Gabor as the new Washingotn Consensus, the guiding idea on internation monetary institutions in tackling the climate emergency, without tackling the inequality behind it. Here on the Guardian: Private finance won’t decarbonise our economies – but the ‘big green state’ can

Post scriptum: I think it is relevant to add here Policy Tensor’s post on funding the transition with public money, it has a lot of data on the cost of risky green projects in less developed countries, rightly say that we are back to the development themes of the 60’s of the 20th century, he offers a stark analysis of the geopolitical situations and calls for US to “securitize” the transition issue, which isn’t per se a good thing, sorta calling for a war posture.

BTW he sort of dissent with Gabor, derisking might be needed but the process should not be left in the hands of the blackrocks

Is it feasible to publicly fund the global energy transition?

and the older FEAR AND LOATHING ON THE HOCKEY STICK OF DOOM

the top 1% should reduce emissions by a factor of 30 (to 1/30th of current level) in order to have the bottom 50% treble their emissions (the numbers behind this are well explained here https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20211025-climate-how-to-make-the-rich-pay-for-their-carbon-emissions)

Johan Rockstrom at COP26 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW4fPXzX1S0&list=LL&index=3&t=16s

Johan presents 10 takeouts from the IPCC report which negotiators should keep in mind in Glasgow

Linear cuts of 2 billion Gton a year to have some chance to meet the 1.5 degrees target, 4 billions Gton a year to be fairly sure to meet it

Global warming is human-made, some global warming gases are camuoflaging as beneficial aerosol but in the end are contributing to the co2 balance, this is a critical situation.

Megafires will be the new normal, and so marine life and habitat destruction

Risk of tipping points decrease at 1.5 degrees, increases at higher temps, beware of possible cascading of tipping points: cold water from the arctic into the atlantic, the amazon burns due to failing monsoons, warmer seas disintegrate the antartica shel, sea level rise. This is just one of many.

Btw, carbon markets now cover 20% of emissions but prices are high enough only in Europe

expanding on the concept of climate justice, there is a great substack by adam tooze which delves into the theme of inequality, there s great inequality between countries in emissions, but there is a bigger emissions inequality within countries, so tackling climate change requires also tackling income and wealth inequality. Case in point, emission growth in Far East is led by China, and China has higher Gini than the US; funny enough for a “communist” country https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-newsletter-24

So, the problem is the top 10% who commands half of the world income and prodice half of the world emissions, a curve showing this dubbed the Dinosaur curve

Branko Milanovic, who is a scholar in economic inequality, focus on the 10% habit of flying arond the world and does a thought experiment: in 2020, due to coronavirus, flights were only 60% of 2019, so there is a way to keep people from flying, taxes, permits, whatever is doable. Unemployemnt in the industry, slump in tourism revenues worldwide, holidays flow will rearrange and with some govermnet money, things can smoothly become more green. Decarbonizing and averting the worst of global warming requires bold step, limiting air travel should be tried. Read here https://branko2f7.substack.com/p/climate-change-covid-and-global-inequality

150 trillion public/private committment to climate crisis, while the paltry 100 billion promised to less developed countries hasn’t been paid out yet. Promesse da marinaio

Daniela Gabor notes that IMF paper on climate crisis quotes 23 time “carbon pricing” and only once “industrial policy”. So imagine IMF finance conditional to setting a price on carbon, imposed on poor countries, reminiscent of stabilization policies in the 80s. Will it work ? Gabor and PolicyTensor doubt it

Daniela Gabor https://www.ft.com/content/1d2dcdc4-4de2-4e87-ab1f-574a32c5e0e2

IMF report https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/Policy-Papers/Issues/2021/07/30/IMF-Strategy-to-Help-Members-Address-Climate-Change-Related-Policy-Challenges-Priorities-463093

Policy Tensor ESG and Carbon Pricing La La Lands

Meanwhile Tooze reviews Andrea Malm and notes: Green New Deal appeals to economic mobilization in WW2 USA, Malm rather prefers lenin’s mobilization in 1919-21 russia. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Green Leninism https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-50-andreas-malm-and-ecological

LRB has a second review of Malm’s book, this one is less theoretical and more historical and facts “Malm and the Zetkin Collective’s claim is not that far-right parties happen to exploit voter prejudice against both migration and climate mitigation, but that these two things are necessarily linked. They see ‘fossil fascism’ as an emergent political formation, linking ‘primitive’ fossil capital – direct extractors, which can’t survive divestment – with racist politics.” https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v43/n22/james-butler/a-coal-mine-for-every-wildfire

Half of emissions took place after Kyoto, a quarter in the past 10 years

This chart show emission intensity and szie per country, look how small Africa, and the width of Africa will double during this century

emissions are exponential, CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, exemplified by the famous Keeling curve measured at Mauna Loa, it seems linear, but really a polynomial fit wors better https://plotnick.medium.com/goodbye-400-ppm-the-statistics-of-the-keeling-curve-5a79586d1b2e

I am wondering, emissions are exponential, co2 concentration is nearly linear, how does global warming behave ? LEt’s go and look for a radiative forcing curve. Found on wikipedia, seems linear

and so is temperature grwoth vs 19th century baseline, we are at 1,07 degrees now. Which seems linear since we have been measuring co2 concentration in the atmosphere

and then we have climate, which is a complex system which might have feedbacks and tipping points.