COP27 is proving a Tower of Babel, but the world is waking up to the reality of climate change and the opportunities it will be bring for climate change mitigation and renewable energy investments. Just don’t let the current financial industrial complex be setting the route-map! We need disruptive climate change investment!  

HSBC is being pilloried for comments made by its’ ESG head, but what he said is worthy of consideration. Overly emotional ESG is a distortion that may be as dangerous as climate change denial.

 If we are seriously considering a massive investment in nuclear to mitigate climate change, it might also be sensible to consider hydrogen too. Could hydrogen be a useful fuel source for a carbon free future too?  

Energy Insecurity is the major factor underlying market angst. I’ve been warning about it for years; initially because of mis-investment due to the ESG/climate change bandwagon, and then bad government policy ignoring security of supply. Look where we are now…

This morning let me present 2 morning porridge offerings: 1) Why Energy Insecurity remains the Long Term Threat, and 2) The potential of Hydrogen/Ammonia to solve it. This includes a guest post from Brett Morris on what the Australians are looking at.

Energy and Food Security are intricately linked – and constitute the biggest and most immediate “no-see-um” threat markets have faced in decades. It’s time to get real about addressing energy transition and security, and climate change by accepting Nuclear energy is the most viable solution in the time left us.

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.

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.

Greta Thunburg was right – there was a lot of blah, blah, blah at COP26, but also positive steps. The perception remains of rising climate risks, and that’s fuelling an increasingly de-growth extreme climate change populist agenda – which could prove even more disastrous than rising temperatures!

It’s easy to be cynical about next week’s COP26 Gabfest, but we could all be winners if global leaders successfully optimise for a cleaner decarbonised environment and a global growth economy based on new clean technologies, but we need time for the transition from fossil fuels. If we fail to do so, the alternatives are bleak.

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.