New York’s mammoth pension fund will divest from fossil fuels, the state’s comptroller announced Wednesday, sending a shockwave through the climate movement and energizing the effort to dump investments that contribute to climate change.
Fossils? God made man and diNosaUr at the sAme time. Fossils are fakE NewS
BibLe ProOf!
While this may sound noble, and I’m happy to hear it, it is also financial best practices. Their does not appear to be much upside in fossil fuels medium term, much less long term. Get out while you can.
Getting rid of fossil funding? Will this include the GOP as well?
Net zero by 2040. This is like raising the minimum wage to $20 over the next 15 years. Slightly better than nothing, but mostly (as @dwward points out) going to happen unless they specifically invest with a view to destroying the planet.
Might I suggest a first step towards net zero: get the NYPD out of their SUVs & onto some shiny new Segways.
I dunno, Exxon was nearly 30 bucks a few weeks ago and it was 43 bucks earlier this morning. At the low, it was paying a ten percent dividend. Don’t get me wrong, I’m invested in a hydrogen fuel stock that spiked nearly 20 percent yesterday and I agree that renewable energy is going to be the future, but there’s 100 million passenger vehicles produced globally every year. (over 99% are fossil fuel vehicles) Fossil fuels still provide over 75% of our electric power. Without fossil fuels, mining and transportation would halt. Oh, and it takes enormous amounts of fossil fuels to produce renewable energy sources. Not too long ago, there were between 700- 800 thousand EVs in the US versus 287 million light passenger vehicles running on fossil fuels. That’s besides the planes, trains semis, and ships. It will be a long transition. And that’s not even getting into heating in the Northern part of the country. There’s no battery that’s going to keep us warm when it’s twenty five below outside. Biden does have a great plan for subsidizing efficient or Geo-thermal heating for homes. My annual carbon footprint is close to 8 metric tons, 6 of those metric tons are for heating my home and hot water. About 75% is due to natural gas use. I drive less than two thousand miles a year. I’m thinking that CCT will play a big role going forward also.
Added:
It’s ironic that Exxon Mobil may become more valuable due to carbon capture technology (CCT) They have been pioneers in the industry for years. Myself, I’m looking for a company other than XOM that has the best CCT going forward that can be widely adapted and not too prohibitive cost wise for retrofitting existing natural gas power plants. I think there’s some money to be made in that area going forward.
if the opportunity presents … Trump will threaten to issue an EO that forbids this … of course it will be nothing but bluster …
That must be a fake Bible picture, because Jesus is not wearing his MAGA hat.
That guy’s barrel roll is almost as good as this one:
I just cannot believe all those times the nun whacked me with a yardstick for laughing when I read out loud “…Jesus rode into Jerusalem on his ass…” were for no reason at all ? ? ?
New York has faced years of pressure from activists to divest from fossil fuels.
Otherwise known as progressive activists? Or Greens and Democrats? Or the Radical Left? Or Communists? Or Antifa?
From the article:
“Divestment is a last resort, but it is an investment tool we can apply to companies that consistently put our investment’s long-term value at risk.”
My feeling is that if you don’t believe a stock will double in price in the next 7 to 10 years, there’s no reason to hold it. The dividends are nice, but these stocks are not the future, so divesting just makes sense.
I got talked into buying a natural gas pipeline company stock. Pays a nice dividend but the stock has just been battered and was never higher than the day I bought it. I want to get out in the next year or two hoping to at least get even.
In some ways, that’s the point, though: the big petrochem companies aren’t going to just fold up shop because of moves like this, but they will feel more pressure to diversify themselves and look into things like CCT and other ways to retool in a way that minimizes their climate footprint.
But no, fossil fuels aren’t on their way out any time soon. There simply isn’t a battery technology anywhere near ready to replace their energy density when it comes to things like air travel or freight. Ships? Ships could go renewable, but they’d slow down some to do it (and some of the best designs actually return to sails in addition to solar-charged electric turbines).
I’ve been investing for a very long time and have had a pretty impressive track record after initially making some common mistakes. My experience has always been to go against the trend. If I owned WMB, I’d hang on for while. Natural gas is going to have a rebound after this month when it turns colder. We have had a warm November and December in Minnesota, Between 4-6 degrees warmer than the norm. September and October were colder than usual. Of course the demand will come from more populated areas like the NE. If they are forecast to be colder, NG will rise. CCT will used going forward in natural gas plants. There’s not enough copper in the world to supply all the wind turbines, EVs and the battery chargers needed for the transition over the next two decades. I bought copper and copper stocks in February near the bottom. I unloaded recently because every investment article is saying get into copper. I may miss the final bubble top, but I’m happy with the gains I’ve made. When copper hit 4 bucks during the recession, people were stripping copper out of homes. I’d be nervous to park a Tesla outside if copper hits 5 bucks a pound. NG will also be used to make hydrogen using CCT in the near future. Yes, I’ve read that it’s possible to capture much of the CO2 produced making the hydrogen with NG. But I’m not giving advice, you do what you have to do or feel comfortable with. The upside of the warmer November and December is a lot less CO2 emitted from heating sources. I checked out the CO2 monitoring site this morning and the daily reading is looking good compared to last year. I’m sure it’s due to the warmer weather.
Added:
The only reason I bought XOM last month was because of their NG holdings. I sold this morning. No, I won’t get any dividend to amount to anything. Exxon has a shitload of NG. But I’d rather trade RRC and SWN for pure NG plays. Near 30 bucks was just to compelling to pass up last month. Short term trading is where it’s at. The long term investing style is no longer preferable.
Well, they are definitely fossils, but I am not sure they burn worth a darn…
Instead of burning them, it might be better to just re-bury them.
How does this disadvantage the oil and gas companies? They already have the money from the stock sale. They don’t give it back when someone divests.
The divested shares are just purchased by someone else on the stock market.
The value of their stocks is largely based on their reserves. If they are allowed to produce that much fuel, we are badly screwed. The only way to keep most of the planet habitable is for their reserves to stay in the ground. Al Gore has been saying what you said above for years and he is right, get the hell out of those stock before they tank.
The more institutions decide not to invest, the harder it is to show the year-over-year increase in stock price that lead to big gains for executive-suite wealth. There are also ongoing debt issues that could have a harder time finding takers without offering higher yields. Both incentives to change.