A Bridge to Nowhere: the Case for Oil and Gas Divestment
In January of 2020, BlackRock, the largest fund manager in the world, announced that it would focus on sustainability and climate change as it allocates capital around the globe. BlackRock’s CEO, Larry Fink, stated that “climate change has become a defining factor in companies’ long-term prospects,” and that the financial risks stemming from the climate crisis are the most significant he has seen during his time on Wall Street. He announced that BlackRock, with $7 trillion in assets under management, will no longer invest in thermal coal. This is smart but not forward looking. Carbon Tracker, a leading financial think tank focused on the energy transition, recently found that the “levelized cost of renewable energy is cheaper than the levelized cost of coal in all major markets today.”