The Private Sector Fails Again

 

The Private Sector Fails Again 

 

Mark Carney, GFANZ co-chair, has already publicly admonished Race to Zero for going “too far.”  Jakob Thomae, an advisory board member of GFANZ, says he expects parts of GFANZ will eventually sever ties with Race to Zero and seek a more tailored decarbonization methodology to appease members. 

 

Allowing the sub-alliances, whose boards are heavily represented by the finance industry, to set their own terms is a dangerous move, according to climate nonprofits.

 

Members of the finance industry have warned they’ll only be able to achieve their net-zero goals if the governments of the countries in which they’re based provide adequate frameworks that ultimately encourage their clients to step up.

 

 

-       Wall Street Bankers Told They Can Set Own CO2 Terms After Spat, Bloomberg

 

 

By Gregg Wall (10-15-2022)

 

The world is burning, and flooding, with Wall Street and billionaires torching the planet for astronomical Big Oil & Gas profits and gain… and good old Mark Carney – co-chair of GFANZ (Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero) – is waving the white flag of surrender and the yellow flag of cowardice and appeasement.  In order to keep a consortium of private sector leviathans together, under the rubric of GFANZ, Messrs. Carney and Bloomberg have given the Wall St. banking cartel carte blanche to set their own rules, that is to say, self-regulate fossil fuels finance.  

(Note: GFANZ is basically a trade organization or lobbying group, designed to protect the interests of its members… while holding up a Net-Zero fig leaf & the preeminence of market based sollutions, as its stated goal.  Mr. Carney is former head of the BOC and BOE... he now works for Brookfield Asset Management, which has significant fossil fuels holdings.  Mr. Bloomberg is a multi-billionaire, many times over, is renowned for providing Bloomberg terminals/trading & information tools to Wall St.  Together, Messrs. Bloomberg & Carney are GFANZ co-chairs and their conflicts of interest -- in setting guidance and metrics for Net-Zero -- are far, far too numerous to count.  And GFANZ, arguably, has been an abject failure.  Their actualized achievement, to date, appears to be to waste increasingly precious time, while billionaires, despots, dictators, fossil fuels boardrooms & shareholders, & Wall St. all cash in.  Cha-Ching. Cha-Ching.)

 

Which is to say, when it comes to financing fossil fuels, there will likely be no, or limited, restrictions.  Last I checked, the globe, and particularly the West, is suffering from the fallout of forty-two years of laissez-faire, libertarian industrial policy, and allowing billionaires, multinationals, and Wall St. to do anything, to anyone, they please.  Multi-trillion bailouts come and go; Wall St. and monopolies are bailed out repeatedly; Congress ducks responsibility and worse, fails to hold elites responsible & accountable; the national debt spirals ever higher; and the number and magnitude of new crises grows and grows. 

 

At the root of it all -- failed Reaganomics, Thatcherism; the 2008, 2020 financial crises; and the ongoing Climate Catastrophe -- in short, greed, self-regulation, and moral hazard.  Moral hazard is a fancy term to describe situations where those in power can essentially get away with nearly anything, because they know the government, or rather, central banks will bail them out.  Until the government no longer has the means to do so, as we saw in the United Kingdom over the last couple of weeks.  More to the point at hand, how do you bailout a planet that has been destroyed by fossil fuels? 

 

And behind the GFANZ illusion, behind the self-regulatory smoke & mirrors … rests the greatest of all delusions: that the private sector and the wise girls and boys in boardrooms and C-suites – and the almighty profit motive – will ride to the rescue and save us all.  

 

It’s the greatest lie ever told. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If we are to survive, if we are to escape the epic failure that is neoliberalism… it will take courageous, moral leaders within governments.  Leaders, who aren’t bought off to be little more than cheap salespersons for a failed status quo (i.e., trickle-down and supply-side economics); leaders, who are willing to harness and support the preeminent powers of the state, over the private sector & profit motive, in the service of their citizens.  And above all, leaders, who are willing to do more than talk but actually deliver, again and again (in direct opposition to oligarchy).  Greed and the profit motive have their place in the economy, but almost always completely fail in moments of crisis (crises which greed and the profit motive often create).  

 

The private sector is correct about one thing.  It will take governments to set the objectives & standards for the private sector, in order to save the planet.  (Moreover, these standards must be easily understood, quantifiable, objective, easily measured, subject to audit, subject to substantial penalties for failure to meet goals, and lead not to Net-Zero but to elimination of fossil fuels to the fullest extent possible.)  But what is also equally true is that when the private sector co-opts & buys governments, captures regulatory bodies, infiltrates the government with their own people, and lobbies and buys off elected politicians, there’s very little chance that government will do its job.  

 

Therefore, blame rests entirely upon greed, laissez-faire, and oligarchy.  The planet is but one of many crises.  From the pandemic to extreme poverty and wage & wealth inequality… to collapsing food supplies, epic price gouging from our monopoly – slave wage – economy…  just scratch the surface and you’ll find the parties responsible. 

 

And throwing money at a police & surveillance state, or a new war, isn’t going to save us. 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2022