Banks Facing Reality Ditch the Climate Foolishness!

Tom Shepstone
Shepstone Management Company, Inc.

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Banks are reeling from the SVB debacle and suddenly mythical climate change risks at the heart of ESG nonsense are being recognized as not the top priority.

As I noted yesterday, John Kerry wants to use the climate change narrative as leverage to bring banks into his elitist campaign for control—of us. He wants a world of only big banks merged with government who can utilize digital currency as the vehicle for a CCP type social credit system. But, Kerry is not a particularly smart fellow. He just uses his NPR type voice to make it seem so. Reality, though, has suddenly slammed into his agenda and big banks are backing away.

Bank of England, where climate risk is now secondary to real risk

Here’s the news, from the king of corporatist climate conmen, Michael Bloomberg’s, Bloomberg News:

The Bank of England plans to cut spending on climate change work and redirect the money to core functions because of rising pressures on its costs.
Climate programs will slip lower on the central bank’s agenda so officials can focus more on the core operations such as financial stability, markets and a digital currency, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who asked not to be named. The BOE’s climate work currently focuses on building ESG disclosure guidelines, preparing insurers for risks from rising global temperatures and getting banks to carbon-test their balance sheets.
The move marks a sharp break from the emphasis Mark Carney put on climate during his term as BOE governor from 2013 to 2020. It reflects calls by politicians for the current Governor Andrew Bailey to focus on controlling inflation and identifying potential threats to financial markets.
Carney put climate-related risks to the economy at the heart of the BOE’s financial stability mandate, ordering stress tests on commercial lenders to ensure they were taking the long-term impact of rising global temperatures into account. He later became a United Nations special envoy on climate.

The article goes on to admit Michael Bloomberg was behind much of this ESG type nonsense:

That work was supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, which also backed Carney’s work on the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures. Bloomberg Philanthropies is the philanthropic organization of Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, which owns Bloomberg News.

But, Mike’s millions ultimately didn’t get the job done because climate risks are pure phantoms and financial risk are as real as it gets, which puts the lie to the entire myth of ESG. When it comes down to climate versus the health of the banks themselves the banks vote to save themselves first and, if they do not, they face ruin and jail. The SVB debacle shows us that. According to the New York Times:

The bank had relationships with more than 1,500 companies working on technologies aimed at curbing global warming.
The bank, the largest to fail since 2008, worked with more than 1,550 technology firms that are creating solar, hydrogen and battery storage projects. According to its website, the bank issued them billions in loans…
“Silicon Valley Bank was in many ways a climate bank,” said Kiran Bhatraju, chief executive of Arcadia, the largest community solar manager in the country. “When you have the majority of the market banking through one institution, there’s going to be a lot of collateral damage.”

Yes, SVB was, one might say, one of those “green banks.” And, once the whole thing started going downhill, its CEO dumped his stock to save himself, which could well mean jail for him.

Climate boondoggles were hardly the only reason for SVB’s fall, but they were apparently a factor. SVB was the Big Tech bank and, of course, Big Tech loves to signal its virtues on every level, not just climate. But, it was all for show and bad decisions, combined with Bidenflation doomed it. Other banks are now noticing and pulling back. Justice has arrived except for the fact the bailout of unsecured depositors who despise and look down on us will be paid by us, of course, through more inflation and bank fees.