Category Climate Change

How many reasons to be miserable about markets do you need?

It’s going to be a testing week for markets as a whole slew of negatives, challenges and no-see-ums threaten to overturn everything. It couldn’t look worse… unless of course you remember my key market mantra (read on), and that the sun usually comes up tomorrow. Happy Valentines.. 

Militant ESG has become the biggest threat to solving climate change and energy transition

It’s easy to say no to an investment likely to generate hostile news. It’s simple to go along with increasingly Militant ESG rhetoric on gas to avoid negative headlines. But - we will fail to reach Carbon Net-Zero unless gas remains part of the transition equation and governments get a grip on energy strategies.

Christmas Special Number 1: Energy Transition and Why We Should Not Panic..

Climate Change and Energy Transition is one of the great challenges to capitalism and market economies – but there is no reason to fear it. Its complex, but infinitely solvable. The technologies exist to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 at a cost far less than doomsters fear.

2021 – That was the Year that Was…

“The future may dimly be perceived through the veil of the past”, sounds like bad poetry, but has a point. The confusions and conflabulations that characterised 2021 will likely set the tone for what’s coming – what were the key themes of 2021? Best to understand them before trying to fathom what comes next.

The Threat Board is Looking Busy

Markets are never as bad as you fear, but never as good as you hope. The Threat Board has seldom looked so complex: we can try to predict outcomes, but its notoriously difficult. The list of potential ignition points seems to be expanding exponentially: Energy Prices, Oil, Inflation, Stagflation, Supply Chains, Recession, China, Politics, Consumer Sentiment, Business Confidence, Property Markets, Liquidity, Bond Yields, Stock Prices.. you name it and someone is worrying about it.

Where are the Equinoxal Gales? They are coming…

Stock markets look to have shrugged off this week’s dip despite the likelihood of rising interest rates and the end of QE programmes – the dreaded “Taper” – next year. Markets look calm, but the equinoxal gales are coming as traders focus increasingly on the inflation vs stagflation outlook. There is increasing uncertainty on everything from China, German Elections, to Supply Chains.

ESG – Time for a Complete Rethink

ESG is a marvellous concept appallingly executed. To understand how it’s gone wrong I recommend Tariq Fancy’s rant about his time as Sustainability CIO at Blackrock. To figure out how we actually deliver climate-change mitigation, social amelioration and better corporate governance, and avoid these lofty concepts being hijacked and suborned by business and finance interests, we need to replace the carrot of ESG with the stick of Carbon Taxes and Corporate Legislation. Time to get real and dispense with ESG claptrap.