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UN Backs Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign

Posted by Soulskill on from the this-SUV-won't-run-on-unleaded-moral-authority dept.

mdsolar sends this report from The Guardian: The UN organization in charge of global climate change negotiations is backing the fast-growing campaign persuading investors to sell off their fossil fuel assets. It said it was lending its "moral authority" to the divestment campaign because it shared the ambition to get a strong deal to tackle global warming at a crunch UN summit in Paris in December.

The move is likely to be controversial as the economies of many nations at the negotiating table heavily rely on coal, oil and gas. In 2013, coal-reliant Poland hosted the UNFCCC summit and was castigated for arranging a global coal industry summit alongside. Now, the World Coal Association has criticized the UNFCCC's decision to back divestment, saying it threatened investment in cleaner coal technologies.

9 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. Re: How about more solar education? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    You are not even close to correct with regards to energy payback for photovoltaics. They recover their energy inputs in 1-4 years

    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_energy_gain

  2. Mistake by mdsolar · · Score: 4, Informative

    You seem to have made a mistake about solar energy payback times, which are about a year. http://cleantechnica.com/2013/...

  3. Well just maybe by pastafazou · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They should mandate that all UN organizations stop all live meetings and switch to video conferencing only. The amount of jet fuel currently burned from these meetings and conferences would be immense. If not, then they're a bunch of hypocritical SOBs.

  4. 10 myths about fossil fuel divestment by mdsolar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    10 myths about fossil fuel divestment are put to the sword here: http://www.theguardian.com/env... Yours is #5. "To sell a stock you have to have a buyer. But the amounts being divested are too small to flood the market and cut share prices, so they won’t be going cheap. Also, the buyers of the stock are taking on the risk that the fossil fuel stocks may tank in the future, if the world’s nations fulfil their pledge to keep global warming below 2C by sharply cutting carbon emissions. If these stocks are risky, then the public and value-based institutions primarily targeted by the divestment movement should not be holding them. The argument that owning a stock gives you influence over a company leads us neatly into the next divestment myth."

    1. Re:10 myths about fossil fuel divestment by Firethorn · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Having read that, a central core of the divestment theory amounts to "to bankrupt them morally."

      That assumes the corporation, like most corporations, wasn't already morally bankrupt to begin with. I mean, US tobacco companies are still plodding along, how more morally bankrupt can you get than them? Even the fossil fuel companies can at least point out all the positives their products bring - fuel for your vehicles so you can move around, energy to heat and cool your homes, keep your computers running, etc...

      So, I have to ask, if the values being divested are too small to affect their stock price, are being readily bought by others, and they've already given up on changing said companies by actually buying enough stock to get on the board, how is it supposed to be effective? What's the goal?

      When you acknowledge that they already don't have 'morals' to bankrupt. That you're not changing the stock price, you're not depriving them of capital or credit, you're not changing anything.

      Putting money into renewable energy helps the renewable energy fields, but is currently, on average, a riskier investment than the traditional companies, many of which have put a lot of money into renewables themselves.

      --
      I don't read AC A human right
  5. Re:The economies of many nations? Try the sconomy by sumdumass · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wow.. If using fucktarded repeatedly didn't show how fucking stupid you are, using USian as if it was an actual word most certainly does.

    Here is a hint, the accepted term- even internationally is American. It is because the country is the United States of America and is the only country in north or south America that ends it's country name with America. Other countries have America in their official names, but they do not end it with America in neither their official language or the English version of the name so no other country has claim to the usage.

    But it is not just the US who doesn't do anything about AGW concerning coal, natural gas, or oil (which it actually is, per capita GHG emissions in the US was 19.1 metric tons and in 2010, it was 17.6 which is a greater per capita drop than Canada, Japan, China, Italy, Australia, and only 2 tenths of a metric ton less than France). China, India (who both have surpassed the US in raw emissions), almost all third world countries, simply do not give a shit as much as you think they should either. In fact, Most of Europe who put arbitrary limitations on themselves ended up moving production over seas (off shoring) to eliminate accounting of carbon more than eliminating the carbon emissions itself. And Germany, they plateaued and seem to be increasing their emissions now, but they had the added benefit of combining two separate systems (East and West Germany) and doing away with redundant pollution sources with news more efficient sources which explains most of their reductions.

    Here is another hint. Perhaps you wouldn't be afraid to post real posts and even use a real moniker if you actually paid attention and knew what was going on rather than jerk your knee so hard that you hit yourself in the head and can only speak from emotion.

  6. Re:Fossil fuel divestment makes for smart money by Harlequin80 · · Score: 5, Informative

    You are joking right???

    World wide coal consumption has increased EVERY year for the past 30 years and is predicted to continuing increasing for the next 30. In the last decade coal consumption has sky rocketed. The reason the price is low at the moment is because too many supplies came on tap at the same time.

    As for the oil price, again you are seeing a battle for market share. Irrespective of that oil is rarely used for electricity generation and is predominately used for transport. As it stands electricity, no matter how it is generated, is incapable to replacing oil for transport.

  7. Re: How about more solar education? by garyisabusyguy · · Score: 5, Informative

    There is every reason to consider the cost of the power inputs that are required to produce green energy.

    Overly optimistic calculations made ethanol from corn look like a great thing because they did not consider the energy that is spent creating the farm equipment, sowing and harvesting the corn etc

    Anybody coming to the table with a 'new' power source that seems to ignore these costs should be sent packing to do their homework

    --
    Wherever You Go, There You Are
  8. Re:Oh look, another 'climate change' post... by turkeyfish · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Of course it must be lie. It can't be getting hotter, which explains why all the world's glaciers are simultaneously melting faster than at any time previously recorded.

    Makes one wonder, if its not getting hotter, why is all that ice melting? Why are sea levels rising? Surely those who believe that catastrophic man-made global warming is just a big lie, must have some explanation. One that has a shred of credibility to it. Of course, that would be asking too much.

    The reality is global climate change is very much an energy issue and one that will fundamentally change how humans use and produce energy or it will end humanity for sure, primarily by making the environment they take for granted disappear before their eyes.