Category:Climate Policy: Difference between revisions

• https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-gop-votes-next-week-kill-bidens-woke-esg-investing-rule

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The E.S.G. Fight Looms Ahead

GreenPolicy360's position -- 'Yes, properly, intelligently, appropriately, wisely, pick your word for smart investing. Our word is an acronym. ESG, and ESG investing's time is now'

Kentucky passed a law targeting banks and their climate policies. Bankers sued the attorney general. Whose definition of investment risk should prevail?

• https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/24/your-money/anti-esg-investing-kentucky.html

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Harvard Environmental & Energy Law Program

• https://eelp.law.harvard.edu/2022/07/the-secs-proposed-esg-rules-aim-to-provide-better-information-to-investors/

Environment, social, and governance (ESG) factors have boomed in recent years

Bloomberg projects that ESG investments may surpass $41 trillion worldwide by the end of 2022, up from $22.8 trillion in 2016. In the US alone, sustainable investments grew to $17.1 trillion in 2020, which accounts for a third of US assets under management according to the US Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investment.

As interest in ESG investing grows, there is considerable variation in how fund managers define ESG and how funds approach ESG investing. For example, some funds may exclude certain polluting investments like oil and gas, while other funds may include some oil and gas companies based on their stated commitment to decarbonization. There is also variation in the utility of the ESG label to investors: researchers have found high levels of misleading claims among ESG funds.

Regulators and investors are questioning the approach and impact of many ESG funds. Given the lack of relevant reporting requirements, it’s difficult for investors to understand how a fund accounts for ESG factors in investment decisions and what impacts those investments have on the issues they claim to address.

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Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance

Long-Awaited ESG Rules

June 2022

On May 25, 2022, in a long-awaited move, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) issued a pair of rule proposals related to the use of environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) investment practices by open-end and closed-end registered investment companies, as well as by business development companies (“BDCs,” and collectively, “funds”). The SEC’s stated goals with these proposals are to increase transparency and confidence in funds that consider ESG factors as part of their investment process, given the recent and ongoing dramatic growth in investor interest in ESG investing. The SEC believes that investors looking to participate in ESG investing currently face a lack of consistent, comparable and reliable information among funds that claim to consider one or more ESG factors.

The first proposal seeks to create a robust disclosure and reporting framework for funds regarding their ESG investment practices. To effectuate this goal, the proposal would make a number of amendments to the registration and reporting forms utilized by funds in their securities offerings and ongoing periodic reporting. While the SEC does not generally prescribe specific disclosures for particular investment strategies, the SEC believes that ESG strategies and disclosures differ materially in certain respects that necessitate specific requirements and mandatory content standards to assist investors in making more informed investment decisions.

The second proposal would amend Rule 35d-1 (the so-called “Names Rule”) under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the “Investment Company Act”), to, among other things, add new requirements for funds that consider ESG factors in connection with their investment practices. The SEC believes that the Names Rule, which has not been amended since its adoption over 20 years ago, has not kept pace with industry developments and product evolution. Additionally, the SEC emphasized that competitive pressures may incentivize asset managers to include words in a fund’s name as a way to attract investor assets—for example, terms related to ESG. Further, the SEC expressed concern that the current Names Rule may permit funds to depart, over time, from the investment focus suggested by their name. Importantly, the proposed amendments to the Names Rule also would have significant implications for non-ESG funds, especially for those funds that may invest in more illiquid assets (including funds of private funds), and would mark a significant change, as the rule does not currently apply to commonly used fund names that focus on investment strategies instead of particular investments, such as “growth” or “income” funds.

Each proposal was approved by the SEC in a 3-1 vote along party lines, with Commissioner Peirce dissenting. The proposals will remain open for public comment for 60 days after their publication in the Federal Register.

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ESG Factors

Environmental, social, and governance investing

Act Now with Business Intelligence

• https://www.esg.org/what-is-esg

• https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/environmental-social-and-governance-esg-criteria.asp

ESG Creates Value

• https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/five-ways-that-esg-creates-value

Deloitte Insight into ESG

• https://www2.deloitte.com/ce/en/pages/global-business-services/articles/esg-explained-1-what-is-esg.html

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GreenPolicy360 and Strategic Demands:

New Definitions of National Security

Eco-nomics

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/New_Definitions_of_National_Security

• https://strategicdemands.com/new-definitions-of-security/

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Eco-nomics

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Bookmark Climate Policy @GreenPolicy360

• http://bit.ly/GreenPolicy360Climate

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GreenPolicy360's Story: Five Decades+ of Atmospheric/Earth Science, Climate Activism

GreenPolicy360 Siterunner: News from NOAA today. This is type of work I've been focusing on... #EarthScience ... since the launch of #EarthDay in 1970. I'm remembering George Brown explaining to Gaylord Nelson in a planning mtg how we needed data, climate info w a baseline and access to the data sets for scientists, educators, and public. Rep Brown told the Senator that he'd get the job going in his com't oversight role. He did -- for three decades George shepherded NASA/NOAA/USGS/JPL, a flock of Earth Science missions, programs and their funding. George was referred to over the years as the 'Big Science' man ...

Read the latest (Feb. 2023) on these 'Vital Signs' data gathering missions...

• https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/news/noaa-updates-its-global-surface-temperature-dataset

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Earth Observing System and an Eco Operating System

A Whole Earth Point of View

The Modern Environmental Movement, Beginnings to Now

Earth Science Vital Signs

Atmospheric Science | ThinBlueLayer.com | Climate Policy | Earth Science Research from Space | Planet Citizens

NASA

Focus on How Thin the Atmosphere is ...

• http://www.thinbluelayer.com

Climate Problems, Climate Solutions

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Climate_Problems,_Climate_Solutions

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:CO2_photo.JPG

Generation Green

SJS/GreenPolicy360:

"We are the first generation to scientifically and systemically monitor the 'Vital Signs' of the Earth...

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2022

Planet Citizen Action

Planet Citizen Action and a "CEOS", a Committee on Earth Observation Satellites

GreenPolicy360 welcomes the arrival of a global science mission, a "Global Stocktake", a collection of earth science data to be made available to the community of nations, to planet citizen activists and scientists, educational institutions, non-profits, NGOs, young and old to become tools for legal enforcement of national climate plans & pledges.

* https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Global_Stocktake,_the_first_GST.jpg

See GreenPolicy 2021 initiative for Legally Enforcing National Climate Plans

Visit GreenPolicy360's "Climate Plans Enforcement" (Project-in-Dev 2021-2022)

"Turning National Climate Pledges & Promises into Reality"

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Climate_Plans_Enforcement_-_Resources

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:Methods_to_enforce_climate_pledges-NDCs_-_Dec_2021.png

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• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:NASA_has_a_new_mission..._against_Methane.png

GreenPolicy360: Methane hot spots we're coming to find you, identify you, act to stop you and enforce climate laws.

"Super emitters", we have a message for you, you can't hide....

• https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/methane-super-emitters-mapped-by-nasa-s-new-earth-space-mission

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/File:NASA_has_a_new_mission..._against_Methane.png

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August 2022

GreenPolicy360 Siterunner / Steve Schmidt: Yesterday's historic news, as posted to our GreenPolicy360 Climate News.

Today's another day. I started my envir protection work in the mid 1960s with George E Brown. It's been a ride, a long, long ride...

#PlanetCitizens

A Green New Deal by Another Name

Three Legislative Actions Add Up to a New Version of a Green New Deal

Infrastructure, CHIPS, IRA...

GreenPoliyc360: Let's look more closely at three huge advances as the US acts to deal with climate...

A Renamed and Restructured Green New Deal

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Green_New_Deal

Climate News

U.S. House of Representatives Passes Historic Legislative Package

Inflation, Taxes, Health -- Energy and Climate

After lengthy 'rip-roaring attack speech' by Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy and speeches by Democratic Leaders Hoyer and Pelosi, the vote is strictly partisan

With a vote of 220 to 207, the House agreed to the single largest federal investment in the fight against climate change and the most substantial changes to national health care policy since passage of the Affordable Care Act. The bill now goes to Mr. Biden for his signature

House approves Biden’s flagship climate and tax package

Final passage of $700bn bill marks significant legislative victory for U.S. president

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The U.S. action could spur other nations to do more — especially China and India, the two largest carbon emitters along with the U.S. That in turn could lower prices for renewable energy globally...

Investments work better at fostering clean energy than regulations, said Leah Stokes, an environmental policy professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The climate bill is likely to spur billions in private investment, she said: “That’s what’s going to be so transformative.”

Sweeping climate bill pushes American energy to go green

• https://apnews.com/article/technology-science-congress-climate-and-environment-f084d23d61ebb068068d4aa92c82fdbb

Associated Press / August 12, 2022

By SETH BORENSTEIN, MATTHEW DALY and MICHAEL PHILLIS

WASHINGTON (AP) — After decades of inaction in the face of escalating natural disasters and sustained global warming, Congress hopes to make clean energy so cheap in all aspects of life that it’s nearly irresistible. The House is poised to pass a transformative bill Friday that would provide the most spending to fight climate change by any one nation ever in a single push...

The crux of the long-delayed bill, singularly pushed by Democrats in a closely divided Congress, is to use incentives to spur investors to accelerate the expansion of clean energy such as wind and solar power, speeding the transition away from the oil, coal and gas that largely cause climate change.

The United States has put the most heat-trapping gases into the air, burning more inexpensive dirty fuels than any other country. But the nearly $375 billion in climate incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act are designed to make the already plummeting costs of renewable energy substantially lower at home, on the highways and in the factory. Together these could help shrink U.S. carbon emissions by about two-fifths by 2030 and should chop emissions from electricity by as much as 80%.

“This legislation is a true game-changer. It will create jobs, lower costs, increase U.S. competitiveness, reduce air pollution,” said former Vice President Al Gore, who held his first global warming hearing 40 years ago. “The momentum that will come out of this legislation, cannot be underestimated.”

The U.S. action could spur other nations to do more — especially China and India, the two largest carbon emitters along with the U.S. That in turn could lower prices for renewable energy globally, experts said.

Because of the specific legislative process in which this compromise was formed, which limits it to budget-related actions, the bill does not regulate greenhouse gas emissions, but deals mainly in spending, most of it through tax credits as well as rebates to industry, consumers and utilities.

Investments work better at fostering clean energy than regulations, said Leah Stokes, an environmental policy professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The climate bill is likely to spur billions in private investment, she said: “That’s what’s going to be so transformative.”

The bill promotes vital technologies such as battery storage. Clean energy manufacturing gets a big boost. It will be cheaper for consumers to make climate-friendly purchasing decisions. There are tax credits to make electric cars more affordable, help for low-income people making energy-efficiency upgrades and incentives for rooftop solar and heat pumps.

There are also incentives for nuclear power and projects that aim to capture and remove carbon from the atmosphere...

The Rhodium Group research firm estimates the bill would dramatically change the arc of future U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, cutting them by 31% to 44% in 2030, compared to what had been shaping up to be 24% to 35% by 2005 without the bill, said Rhodium partner John Larsen. Clean power on the grid, an upcoming Rhodium report says, would jump from under 40% now to between 60% and 81% by 2030, he said.

“It’s not as big as I want, but it’s also bigger than anything we’ve ever done,″ said Sen. Brian Schatz, a Hawaii Democrat who leads the Senate climate caucus. “A 40% emissions reduction is nothing the U.S. has ever come close to before.″

As decisive a change as it is for U.S. policy and emissions, it still does not reach the official U.S. goal of cutting carbon pollution roughly in half by 2030 to achieve net-zero carbon emissions across the economy by 2050.

Republicans, who unanimously opposed the bill in the Senate, say it would add to consumers’ energy costs, with House GOP Whip Steve Scalise claiming it “wastes billions of dollars in Green New Deal slush funds.”

“It’s a mark of shame that it took this long for our political system to react,” said Bill McKibben, a long-time climate activist, adding that it leaves the fossil fuel industry with too much power. “But this will help catalyze action elsewhere in the world; it’s a declaration that hydrocarbons are finally in decline and clean energy ascendant, and that the climate movement is finally at least something of a match for Big Oil.”

The 730-page bill is here

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Steve Schmidt / GreenPolicy360: The passage by the US Congress of a 730 page legislative plan enabling comprehensive energy, technology, science, transportation, communication and climate change action took, it can be said, 45+ yrs to pass... We look back to the beginning of climate science in the 1960s and 70s and our calls for real climate action. In the 1970s the first National Climate Act was passed thanks to a Congressman from East Los Angeles. Our #GreenPolicy360 network thanks Rep George E. Brown, a main mover at the beginning, who'd be smiling now if he were here ...

• https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/George_E._Brown_Jr