It may make you feel like you’re doing something, but those climate
activists screaming at investors to divest from those dirty fossil fuels
could be wasting their time, Microsoft mogul Bill Gates has said.
Gates, one of the world’s leading philanthropists, is telling the climate
brigade that they would be better off abandoning their divestment crusades
and instead encouraging investments in alternatives such as disruptive technologies that will slow carbon emissions.
How many tons of carbon emissions has the divestment crusade reduced thus
far? Likely zero, Gates told the Financial
Times, in his most scathing remark to the climate activists.
“It’s not like you’ve capital-starved people making steel and gasoline,”
Gates said.
While recent reports suggest that the global fossil fuel divestment
movement has already shifted $11 trillion of investment away from oil, gas, and coal -
the real impact is likely zero.
A better course of action, suggests Gates, would be to invest in
innovative businesses such as Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods—two businesses
that Gates has backed. Gates, according to the FT, only invests in companies
and start ups who have a plan to reduce greenhouse gases by 0.5%. Related:
World's Largest IPO At Risk Following Drone Strikes
Gates’ comments run contrary to the divestment
crusade that has caught the media’s attention in recent years as new
targets find themselves in the climate change crosshairs. There has been a
conscious push by activists to restrict funds or ban oil pipeline builds, to
ban fracking, and to increase taxes on oil and gas companies. Sovereign
Wealth Funds, too, are pulling up stakes in the dirtiest of the dirty fossil
fuels—coal.
There is even a Global Divestment Day. According to Gates, though, these
climate crusaders may not be getting as much bang for their buck as they
could be, if they were to promote investments in clean energy and other
fossil fuel disruptors.
And Gates’ chiding doesn’t stop there.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has today released its latest
edition of its Goalkeepers report, which attempts to measure progress towards
the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. At a UN General Assembly meeting next
week, meeting attendees are expected to commit to these new goals. The
Foundation, however, unequivocally considers these promises to be entirely
unrealistic.
“We’re nowhere near improving fast enough to reach those goals,” Gates
told FT.
By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com
