TBLI Weekly - January 23rd, 2024
Robert Rubinstein
Leading Sustainable Investment Advisor | 25+ Years of Experience. Sustainable Finance Thought Leader of the Year
Your weekly guide to Sustainable Investment
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This week's TBLI event
TBLI Impact Networking (Mixer)
January 26th at 16:00 CET
Join the TBLI Virtual Networking (Mixer) and connect with impact investors, entrepreneurs, and sustainability thought leaders worldwide through our immersive virtual platform. Engage in timed 1-on-1 speed networking sessions.
Upcoming TBLI Talk
? Michael Madden has over 30 years of experience in Financial Services. His success has been built on inventive business intelligence, the ability to engage with international partners, and most importantly, as a leader and consensus builder. Michael has significant knowledge of the payments industry, both cards and digital, the retail banking sector, and as a business leader and entrepreneur in emerging markets.?
What will you learn in this webinar:
-How do you launch a fintech company in a country that lacks everything?
-How do you keep your staff safe during a coup?
-What are the greatest challenges in frontier markets?
TBLI Radical Truth podcast
How can pension funds integrate impactful investment /w Denise le Gal?
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Most pension funds have realised that they need to look at all risks in their investment strategy; i.e. financial, environmental, social and governance risk.?Brunel Pension Partnership?Limited?(Brunel) is one of eight national Local Government Pension Scheme Pools, bringing together more than ￡30 billion of investments of 10 likeminded funds.
Denise Le Gal, Chair of Brunel Pension Partnership shares?her experience as a thought leader in the responsible investing space in the latest TBLI Radical Truth podcast Listen to the latest episode
Why 2024 will be a crucial year for climate litigation
By:?Dharna Noor?- The Guardian
Advocates predict activists and local governments will look to the courts to bring about accountability for climate damage
Amid?record domestic oil and gas production?in the US and broken?promises?from fossil fuel companies, climate champions are increasingly looking to the courts to bring about accountability for climate damage. More than two dozen local and state governments are challenging oil companies on these grounds, while youth plaintiffs have seven pending lawsuits targeting state and federal lawmakers.
Last year brought landmark victories for these complaints, including a groundbreaking ruling in?Montana?that could force the state to alter its environmental?policies. Supporters hope that pattern continues.
“We might look back and say 2024 is the year that climate lawsuits really took off,” said Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, a non-profit that tracks and supports?climate complaints.
But obstacles lie ahead. Last week the Biden administration filed a motion indicating it aims to have a major youth-led suit against the federal government dismissed.
Here are eight things to watch for this year.
Groundbreaking Montana ruling enacted
In a stunning August 2023 win, a judge ruled in favor of young Montana residents who claimed the state’s pro-fossil fuel policies violated their right to a clean and healthy environment.
The order, which followed the first-ever youth-led constitutional climate trial, represented “the strongest decision on climate change ever issued by any court”, Michael Gerrard, founder of Columbia’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law,?told the Guardian at the time.
The state?appealed?the ruling to Montana’s supreme court, which said it would review the case. Arguments will be held in spring or early summer, with a final decision expected later in the year, according to Our Children’s Trust, the law firm that brought the suit.
The state’s attorneys?called on the court?to freeze the ruling in the meantime, which?the court?denied. ?
“For the time being, what this means is that the state agencies in Montana have to follow the ruling,” said Mat dos Santos, general counsel at Our Children’s Trust.
To comply with the order, the state will be expected to review its environmental policies, such as energy permitting processes, to ensure they account for climate damages, said Dos Santos. The decision also bodes well for a possible favorable final order from the court, Dos Santos added.
Youth take the stand
In Hawaii, a judge is set to hear a youth-led case in June.
The lawsuit claims that the state’s transportation agency failed to cooperate with other regulators to slash carbon pollution.
“This trial will give us keiki a voice to advocate for our rights and to protect our environment,” said Taliya N, one of the 14 young plaintiffs in the case, using a Hawaiian word for youths. Plaintiffs have begun to report for their depositions, which?they claim have been?unnecessarily aggressive.
Late last year, a judge?cleared the path?for a trial in Juliana v US,?the first youth-led case against the federal government. The plaintiffs’ lawyers have asked for a trial date to be set for December.
However,?the Biden administration has?indicated it will attempt to get the case thrown out: on Thursday,?the justice department asked a US circuit court to stay the case, pending a forthcoming executive?petition?from the White House.
That petition will argue that “the government will be irreparably harmed” if it is forced to spend time and resources litigating the Juliana case, the Thursday filing said.
It’s a move pulled “straight from the Trump playbook”, said Philip Gregory, a lawyer affiliated with Our Children’s Trust. The previous administration made similar arguments, unsuccessfully, on six different occasions.
Gregory said that Our Children’s Trust would ask the court to deny the justice department’s request for a stay, and called on supporters to?urge?the Department of Justice to refrain from using executive powers to block the case. The true “irreparable harm” is the climate harms children are facing, he said. Read full article?
Oil companies used to run this town. Now they’re back — to mine for lithium.?
By:?Katie Myers?- The Grist
Fossil fuel companies are turning to rural communities for critical minerals, raising familiar hopes and fears.
Chantell Dunbar-Jones remembers when her hometown of Lewisville, Arkansas, seemed to have oil wells on every corner.?The small town, located in the southwestern part of the state, sits atop the Smackover Oil Formation, one of the largest oilfields in the United States. For a long time, nearly everyone worked for the oil industry. Dunbar-Jones’ father started with Phillips 66 but was shunted to smaller and smaller companies as wells started closing in the late 1990s and the industry shifted toward Texas. In the years since, the town has seen residents and businesses leave in pursuit of brighter futures.
The area’s fortunes began to look up late last year, when ExxonMobil, alongside a couple of other companies, announced its intention to begin producing lithium in the region by 2027. It opened a test site on the Smackover formation, which spans three states and could supply?15 percent of the world’s lithium. It’s got folks in Lewisville cautiously hopeful that the change could turn things around.
“We are just very excited, trying to get all our ducks in a row and be able to take advantage of what’s coming,” said Dunbar-Jones, who has served on the city council for seven years.
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ExxonMobil joins a growing rush to supply the natural resources needed to drive the green transition. Oil producers and coal companies like Ramaco Resources are looking to collaborate with the Department of Energy to uncover them and, in some cases, wring more money from land they already own.?
Lithium and other minerals like cobalt, nickel, and silicon are essential to producing solar panels, wind turbines, and the batteries that power electric vehicles. Right now, the vast majority of these critical minerals come from?Argentina, Australia, Chile, China, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. There’s only one rare-earth elements and one lithium mine in the U.S., and the Biden administration has made?more than $407 million?available for domestic exploration and production through the Inflation Reduction Act. That influx compounds the effect of other investments at various links in the domestic clean energy supply chain. These subsidies have made cashing in on the green transition attractive to fossil fuel companies, many of which have access to potentially productive land and the experience and equipment to mine it. In places known for their reserves of oil and coal, such as the Powder River Basin of Wyoming and southern Arkansas, fossil fuel companies are descending on newly discovered stores of critical minerals. That’s left some people excited by the promise of economic revitalization and others nervous that they’ll be revisited by all the worst social and environmental impacts of fossil fuel extraction.?
Dunbar-Jones, so far, sees few reasons for concern. Mostly, Exxon’s announcement, alongside similar announcements from companies like Standard Lithium, feels like a great excuse to dress up Lewisville and collaborate with surrounding towns to open the region up for business. She’s been told the area could see hundreds of new jobs. “We’re losing people to lack of adequate housing, lack of adequate employment,” she said. “Now that lithium is coming, everyone’s trying to come back.”
The land around the Smackover Oil Formation remains?scarred?by years of eager and often ill-planned petroleum extraction, its streams contaminated by oil and brine. Exxon and other companies looking for lithium have participated in public meetings where they’ve allayed environmental concern, Dunbar-Jones said, declaring their methods to be safe and environmentally sound. But she still wonders.
“How can you really know before they come in and get started?” she asked.
ExxonMobil did not respond to a request for comment, but in a statement announcing the lithium project said the process by which it will mine the lithium is safe and produces fewer carbon emissions than hard rock mining and requires significantly less land.
Alok Sharma condemns government’s oil and gas bill as vote passes first hurdle
?By: Helena Horton ?- The Guardian
Alok Sharma has said the government’s oil and gas bill going through the Commons will not cut household energy costs or create jobs and instead will break the UK’s promise to phase out fossil fuels.
The government’s offshore petroleum licensing?bill passed its second reading on Monday night with 293 votes to 211 against. No Conservative MPs voted against it, and Sharma – the former business secretary who served as president of the Cop26 climate talks – abstained. The legislation would place the?North Sea Transition Authority?under a duty to run annual applications for new offshore oil and gas licences.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, made up of hundreds of scientists, has said?no new oil and gas licences?should be granted if the world is to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. Going beyond this would cause climate catastrophe, ruining the lives of millions. UK ministers promised to phase out oil and gas at last year’s Cop28 conference in Dubai. ?
Referring to minister Graham Stuart who represented the UK at the conference, Sharma said: “My right honourable friend tweeted himself at Cop28 that there must be an unabated phaseout of fossil fuels to meet our climate goals. But today we have a bill before this house, the sole purpose of which is to double down on granting more oil and gas production licences. I do not believe, and it pains me to say this, that this bill will advance that commitment to transition away from fossil fuels.”
He said the bill would not lower bills or create jobs, despite the claims of the energy secretary, Claire Coutinho. Sharma said: “This bill is about improving domestic energy security. But I think we all understand that the oil and gas extracted from the North Sea is owned by private enterprises and the government does not control who it is sold to. We all understand that this does not necessarily lower bills. We have to acknowledge that 200,000 jobs supported by the oil and gas industry have been lost over the last decade, and that is despite hundreds of new drilling licences being issued.”
He added that skills in the oil and gas industry were fully transferrable to green energy and said the government should instead focus on “more wind power, more solar, more nuclear”.
Ed Miliband pointed out that a host of Tories including former?net zero tsar, Chris Skidmore,?who resigned as an MP over the government’s plans, former prime minister Theresa May and Sharma had all criticised the bill.
The shadow energy secretary referred to the bill as “climate vandalism”, telling the Commons: “We face massive challenges as a country but it isn’t the scale of our problems that is apparent today, it’s the smallness of their response.” He said the bill was “risible” and would not make any difference to Britain’s energy security.
But Coutinho said the bill would “improve energy security here and in Europe”, adding: “We do not live in a world where we can simply turn off oil and gas.” She said the UK was “blessed” with the North Sea and the fossil fuels contained within.
Some Tory MPs expressed concern over the bill. Vicky Ford, MP for Chelmsford said: “The perception internationally is that by granting these licences, the UK may be walking away from our promises on climate change.”
However, she and fellow?Conservative Environment Network?member, Jerome Mayhew, said they would be voting for the bill but at a later date would vote for amendments that would force the UK oil and gas industry to operate in a lower carbon way.
Flush With Investment, New U.S. Factories Face a Familiar Challenge
By?Ana Swanson?and?Jim Tankersley?- The New York Times
Worries are growing in Washington that a flood of Chinese products could put new American investments in clean energy and high-tech factories at risk.
The Biden administration has begun pumping more than $2 trillion into U.S. factories and infrastructure, investing huge sums to try to strengthen American industry and fight climate change.
But the effort is facing a familiar threat: a surge of low-priced products from China. That is drawing the attention of President Biden and his aides, who are considering new protectionist measures to make sure American industry can compete against Beijing.
As?U.S. factories spin up?to produce electric vehicles, semiconductors and solar panels, China is flooding the market with similar goods, often at?significantly lower prices than American competitors. A similar influx is also hitting the European market.
American executives and officials argue that China’s actions violate global trade rules. The concerns are spurring new calls in America and Europe for higher tariffs on Chinese imports, potentially escalating what is already a contentious economic relationship between China and the West.
The Chinese imports mirror a surge that undercut the Obama administration’s efforts to seed domestic solar manufacturing after the 2008 financial crisis and drove some American start-ups out of business. The administration retaliated with tariffs on solar equipment from China, sparking a dispute at the World Trade Organization.
Some Biden officials are concerned that Chinese products could again threaten the survival of U.S. factories when the government is spending huge sums to jump-start domestic manufacturing. Administration officials appear likely to raise tariffs on electric vehicles and other strategic goods from China, as part of?a review?of the levies that former President Donald J. Trump imposed on China four years ago, according to people familiar with the matter. That review, which has been underway since Mr. Biden took office, could finally conclude in the next few months.
Congress is also agitating for more protections. In?a Jan. 5 letter?to the Biden administration, bipartisan members of a House committee expressed concerns about China flooding the United States with semiconductors. Lawmakers asked whether the government could establish a new “component” tariff that would tax a chip imported inside another finished product.
That followed a?November letter?in which members of the same committee advised the Biden administration to consider a new trade case over China’s electric vehicle subsidies, which could result in additional tariffs on cars.
Katherine Tai, the U.S. trade representative, told the lawmakers that she shared concerns about China’s practices in the electric vehicle industry, according to a Jan. 4 letter that was shared with The New York Times. Ms. Tai told the committee that the administration needed “to work with U.S. companies and unions to identify and deploy additional responses to help overcome China’s state-directed industrial targeting in this sector.”
The United States has?maintained tariffs?on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese products over the past five years, viewing that as a way to offset Beijing’s ability to undercut American manufacturers by selling cheaper products in the United States. Mr. Biden has tried to further help American companies with billions in subsidies intended to boost U.S. manufacturing of clean energy technology like solar panels and electric vehicles along with semiconductors.
How climate disasters hurt adolescents’ mental health
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By: Zoya Teirstein ?- The Grist
Young people traumatized by Hurricane Maria were more likely to report substance use.
After a hurricane, flood, wildfire, or other disaster strikes, a great tallying commences: the number of people injured and killed; buildings damaged and destroyed; acres of land burned, inundated, or contaminated. Every death is recorded, every insured home assessed, the damage to every road and bridge calculated in dollars lost. When the emergency recedes, the insurance companies settle their claims, and the federal government doles out its grants, communities are expected to rebuild. But the accounting misses a crucial piece of the aftermath: Worsening disasters are leaving invisible mental health crises in their wake.?
A?handful of studies?have sought to quantify the scope and scale of the mental health consequences of disasters that have occurred in the recent past, such as?Hurricane Andrew in 1992,?Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and?Hurricane Irma in 2017. The results point to an alarming trend: The stress and trauma of losing a loved one, seeing a home destroyed, or watching a beloved community splinter has resounding mental health repercussions that stretch on for months, even years, after the disaster makes its first impact and can include anxiety, depression, sleep disorders, post-traumatic stress, and sometimes suicidal ideation and suicide follow disasters.?
Children and adolescents — who are still learning to regulate their emotions, rely on routine and a sense of safety more than most adults do, and get social and mental stimulation from interacting with peers — are among the demographics?most vulnerable?to the chaos and isolation brought on by extreme weather events.?
A?study?published in mid-January in the Journal of Traumatic Stress analyzed survey data from more than 90,000 public school students across Puerto Rico in the months following Hurricane Maria’s landfall in September 2017. Maria, a Category 5 storm that caused widespread destruction in the northern Caribbean, killed nearly 3,000 people in Puerto Rico and caused mass blackouts that left huge portions of the island without electricity and drinking water?for months?— a reflection of?decades of disinvestment in and mismanagement?of the island’s infrastructure.
Some 30 percent of the students surveyed five to nine months after the hurricane made landfall said they felt their lives were threatened by the storm, 46 percent said their homes were significantly damaged, and 17 percent said they were injured or a family member was injured.?
Roughly 7 percent of the young people surveyed — about 6,300 students — developed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, after the storm. For this subset, the psychological consequences of living through Maria and its aftermath were extreme.?
Prior research has shown that young people are more likely to turn to alcohol as a coping mechanism after experiencing traumatic stress, a precursor to PTSD. A?study published in 2021?hypothesized that children living in Louisiana who were exposed to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010 would have higher rates of anxiety, depression, and alcohol use as teenagers than the general population in southeastern Louisiana. The researchers found a connection: The more severe the traumatic stress during and after the disaster, the more likely the individual was to report substance use. Read full article?
The disposable cup crisis: what’s the environmental impact of a to-go coffee?
By:?Cecilia Nowell - The Guardian
It’s easy to forget about single-use cups the moment they leave our hands, but their slow decomposition can release microplastics and pollutants No matter how good your office’s coffee is, if you’re like millions of others, you’re probably popping out to a cafe at least once a week to treat yourself to a cup brewed by somebody else. Whether that’s a latte from Starbucks, a cold brew from Dunkin’ or a chai from the mom-and-pop shop around the corner, it’s probably coming served in a disposable cup – made out of paper, plastic or polystyrene foam (which many people refer to by the brand name Styrofoam), that you can toss in the sidewalk trash on your walk back to the office. It’s easy to forget about those single-use cups as soon as they leave our hands, but that’s not to say their environmental impacts stop there too.
Fortunately, more and more people are starting to pack a reusable insulated cup or mug alongside their water bottle – and more coffee shops are offering to pour beverages into the cups customers bring from home. This month, Starbucks announced that it was going full BYOC: bring your own cup. Although the company has allowed customers to bring their own cup for in-person orders?since the 1980s, its move?expanding?BYOC to drive-through and app orders signaled companies’ and customers’ growing wariness of single-use, disposable coffee cups.
So what’s the environmental impact of a single disposable cup? Quite a lot, it turns out.
“The entire lifecycle of disposable cups, from raw material extraction to production and transportation, requires significant energy, contributing to environmental degradation,” Preetam Basu and Thanos Papadopoulos, professors at the Kent School of Business and co-authors of?a 2022 report?on coffee cup waste, said in an emailed statement. “The slow decomposition of disposable cups, especially those with plastic linings, can lead to the release of microplastics into the environment,” and on the off chance that your disposable cup winds up in waste bound for incineration, that process “can release pollutants into the air”.
Styrofoam (or polystyrene foam)
The first disposable cup was actually made from paper. The Dixie Cup,?popularized?during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, was invented as a more sanitary way for people to drink from shared wells or water fountains. But coffee shops turned to polystyrene foam after it was invented in the 1960s because it helped beverages retain their heat longer.
Today, the US produces?about 3m tons?of polystyrene every year. And 80% of it ends up in the trash (including about?25bn?cups each year). That translates to the material taking up about a third of landfill space. As garbage, polystyrene takes?about 500 years?to break down. Manufacturing a single Styrofoam cup leads to?about 33g?of CO2 emissions. That’s the equivalent of driving about a 10th of a mile – which doesn’t seem like much, but when you consider how much polystyrene the US produces each year that adds up to about 21m tons of CO2 – or?about the same?amount that 4.5m cars emit each year.
“Styrofoam cups are lightweight and inexpensive but are non-biodegradable and can persist in the environment for hundreds of years,” said Basu and Papadopoulos. “Improper disposal may result in litter that harms wildlife and ecosystems. Polystyrene foam can break into small pieces, leading to litter and posing a threat to wildlife that may ingest it.” Read full article?
Absolutely pivotal discussion! ?? Let's remember, as Buffett says, it takes years to build a reputation but only moments to ruin it - akin to our planet's health. Let's all contribute positively! ?? #ClimateAction