13 November 2010 19:26
In relation to climate change issues, two recent initiatives on the part of the Deutsche Bank Group give grounds for concern.
(1) In September, the Bank's 'Climate Change Advisors' issued a document entitled Climate Change: Addressing the Major Skeptic Arguments: it was authored by three climate scientists at Columbia University. In an editorial introduction, the Bank's Global Head of Climate Change Investment Research describes it as “a balanced, detailed and expert assessment of the scientific case for climate change that will help investors navigate these extremely complex issues”.
The document's claims to accuracy as a navigational guide were promptly put in question by Ross McKitrick, one of the 'skeptics' supposedly disposed of within it. McKitrick's paper, entitled Response to Misinformation from Deutsche Bank, is dated 12 September. It identifies and spells out an array of errors and misrepresentations.
In response, the authors of the document have now put out a new text which supersedes the original. In this new version they have added a three-page Response to McKitrick where they admit to a few 'mischaracterizations' and offer amended versions of three sentences that they acknowledge to have been misleading. However, the original wording of these faulty sentences remains unchanged and unfootnoted in an unaltered main text: McKitrick has described this behaviour as 'unsporting', while others might characterise it as unprofessional.
In a second piece, dated 8 November, McKitrick has responded to the revised report. In this paper he extends and reinforces his critique. Viewed together, his twin presentations appear as unanswerable. As a guide to investors, or indeed for any other purpose, the document is worthless.
It would be interesting to know whether the Deutsche Bank officials who sponsored and approved this deeply flawed initiative took the precaution of submitting a draft for expert review to persons not already firmly convinced that the 'skeptics' have been refuted.
Looking at the list, it would seem that no such person is to be found among the eminent individuals who make up the Deutsche Bank's Climate Advisory Board: all appear as people who are (to quote a nice phrase from Clive Crook) 'precommitted to the urgency of the climate cause'. A more representative Board, spanning a wider range of opinions. might have taken more trouble to ensure that any published work issued under its auspices would measure up to professional standards.
(2) In the recent Californian elections, voters were invited to accept or reject Proposition 23, which would have placed strict constraints on the state government's plans to introduce further curbs on CO2 emissions. A few days before the vote, a Financial Times report noted that:
'Sixty-eight big investors, managing $415bn in assets, have united to urge Californians to vote against efforts to roll back the state's carbon legislation ... Signatories include ... Deutsche Bank Climate Advisers ...'
If this report is correct, it would seem that its Climate Advisory Board took a strong position on the Bank's behalf on a controversial political matter.
As its website confirms, Deutsche Bank is fully is committed to Corporate Social Responsibility. How far its current handling of climate change issues can be judged to be responsible is open to debate.
Professor David Henderson is the Chairman of the GWPF's Academic Advisory Council. His latest publication on climate change issues has just appeared in the quarterly Newsletter of the Royal Economic Society. ***
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Excerpt: Deutsche Bank, Al Gore And The $10 Billion Climate Fund
Interview by Christian Hiller Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
10 November 2010
The rising levels of global carbon dioxide emissions are increasingly an issue for financial markets. Kevin Parker is convinced of it. The American leads the Global Asset Management business of Deutsche Bank and operates a biodynamic vineyard.
Mr. Parker, you are personally strongly committed to protecting the global climate. Is this not unusual for the head of a global asset management business?
Not at all. Climate change is one of the great megatrends in the world. No investor will pass by this topic.
How can this be understood?
The world economy is largely based on fossil fuels, which we burn unchecked and then strain the atmosphere. The transition to an economy that uses less carbon dioxide has kept us very busy since 2005. Today we are one of the largest investors in the world that invests in climate change. We alone, Deutsche Bank’s Asset Management, have invested several billion Euros.
Why should climate change play a role in the financial markets?
It not only should - it has done so for a long time. Companies which do not start to reduce their CO2 emissions pose an increased risk for investors. Some companies will make the transition to a low-carbon economy successfully, others will fail.
Are you saying that the carbon dioxide emissions will decide how a share will perform on the stock market?
Yes, certainly. You can also see it as an opportunity: companies that tackle environmental challenges and contribute to solutions will be more successful than the others. A company’s carbon dioxide emissions have a direct impact on its cash flow. And this is not just my opinion. These are facts that no one can seriously deny.
How do you find these stocks?
This is part of our daily business, our analysis. If we, for example, have the choice between an energy supplier, which burns dirty coal and one that relies on renewable energy, then we can tell which company will be competitive in the long run and which not.
Do you use your power as an investor to influence corporate policy?
We do not behave in missionary way, waving with a CO2 stick. But it is part of our task as trustees of the investors to identify risks and to name them.
Has the focus on climate change changed the asset management of the Deutsche Bank? /continues
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My comment: What follows is an explanation of how the IPCC has used its political clout to achieve political objectives, i.e. taking money from the public by deception and transferring it to banks, the UN/EC (NWO) political fund and developing countries.
Common knowledge tells us that the IPCC is directed by the Club of Rome think tank's UNEP is a major contributor to CoR's NWO plot progression by political objectives that embrace a global currency, population reduction, destruction of the capitalist system and discrediting of democracy by any means, their preferences being biased towards false medical scares, false climate alarm, financial market destabilisation and currency debasement, wealth transfer to reduce the world to the lowest common denominator.
The Rothschild-Rockefeller bankster cartel and their insurance companies and business lobbies such as DuPont, Enron now GE, BP, etc., various medical orgs and activist charities in concert with aligned scientific orgs and journals, owned or co-opted politicians and controlled media gave the deception a facade. Around 2000 people are conning the world to profit and further an eco-fascist agenda whose direction is given at Bilderberg conferences. Bilderberger's latest meeting included how to maintain the NWO momentum in the now cooling planet.
It has never, ever been about fixing climate.
Excerpt: IPCC Official: “Climate Policy Is Redistributing The World's Wealth” *****
Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental protection, says the German economist and IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer. The next world climate summit in Cancun is actually an economy summit during which the distribution of the world's resources will be negotiated.
(Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 November 2010 Transl. Philipp Mueller)
Interviewer: Bernard Potter
NZZ am Sonntag:
Mr. Eden, everybody concerned with climate protection demands emissions reductions. You now speak of "dangerous emissions reduction." What do you mean?
Ottmar Edenhofer: So far economic growth has gone hand in hand with the growth of greenhouse gas emissions. One percent growth means one percent more emissions. The historic memory of mankind remembers: In order to get rich one has to burn coal, oil or gas. And therefore, the emerging economies fear CO2 emission limits.
But everybody should take part in climate protection, otherwise it does not work.
That is so easy to say. But particularly the industrialized countries have a system that relies almost exclusively on fossil fuels. There is no historical precedent and no region in the world that has decoupled its economic growth from emissions. Thus, you cannot expect that India or China will regard CO2 emissions reduction as a great idea. And it gets worse: We are in the midst of a renaissance of coal, because oil and gas (sic) have become more expensive, but coal has not. The emerging markets are building their cities and power plants for the next 70 years, as if there would be permanently no high CO 2 price.
The new thing about your proposal for a Global Deal is the stress on the importance of development policy for climate policy. Until now, many think of aid when they hear development policies.
That will change immediately if global emission rights are distributed. If this happens, on a per capita basis, then Africa will be the big winner, and huge amounts of money will flow there. This will have enormous implications for development policy. And it will raise the question if these countries can deal responsibly with so much money at all.
That does not sound anymore like the climate policy that we know.
Basically it's a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War. Why? Because we have 11,000 gigatons of carbon in the coal reserves in the soil under our feet - and we must emit only 400 gigatons in the atmosphere if we want to keep the 2-degree target. 11 000 to 400 - there is no getting around the fact that most of the fossil reserves must remain in the soil.
De facto, this means an expropriation of the countries with natural resources. This leads to a very different development from that which has been triggered by development policy. /continues
****
Also see "Constructal GDP"
Lack of energy doesn’t merely hinder or slow or delay development of poor countries as I had thought.
It puts an absolute ceiling on development.
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Excerpt: David Henderson: Climate Change Issues - New Developments In A 20-Year Context
15 November 2010 Royal Economic Society (PDF)
Regular readers will know that the Royal Economic Society Newsletter has published a number of articles in recent years looking at aspects of the climate change debate. In this one, David Henderson (1) reviews the debate and puts new developments in perspective.
This note presents a personal sketch of the current debate on climate change issues, with special reference to the debate among economists. The opening sections, which give a 20-year perspective, draw in part on a paper of mine published earlier this year in the journal Energy and Environment. In the final section I comment on recent unexpected developments and their possible significance.
Received opinion and its basis
In relation to climate change issues, there exists a well-established body of received opinion shared by the great majority of governments and by many of their citizens.
The key elements of received opinion, briefly summarised, are as follows:
• Warming caused by human activities (AGW), through rising emissions, and hence rising atmospheric concentrations, of (so-called) ‘greenhouse gases’, has already become the main influence on global average surface temperatures.
• AGW can be expected to proceed further, as emissions continue to rise as a consequence of growing world output, unless effective preventive measures are put in place.
• Such a general unconstrained rise in global temperatures would increasingly carry with it a range of serious risks, with the possibility in the longer term of developments that could be classed as catastrophic.
• Hence further prompt, sustained and world-wide governmental action is called for in order to limit the extent of warming and deal with its possible consequences. The action should chiefly take the form of ‘mitigation’ — that is, of measures designed to curb emissions of ‘greenhouse gases’ in general and CO2 in particular.
It will be seen that all these four propositions relate to, or depend on, the properties of the climate system. All the first three, and in part the last, are statements about the physical world.
Received opinion is reflected in an official policy consensus. With few exceptions, governments across the world are firmly committed to the view that AGW constitutes a serious problem which requires prompt and continuing official action at both national and international level.
Throughout the years since its adoption, this policy consensus has gone without serious political challenge. In the OECD member countries in particular, climate change issues have been the subject of close and continuing cross-party agreement.
Received opinion has now been in place for over two decades, during which time it has spread and gained further ground. Throughout, it has gone unquestioned within what may be termed the environmental policy milieu. The policy consensus, which itself goes back to the end of the 1980s, has likewise remained a fixture on the world scene and a continuing basis for widespread governmental action at local, national and international level. Both have acquired an aura of permanence.
How is the emergence and continued hold of received opinion to be explained? I think the answer is straightforward. From the start the main influence was, as it still is, the scientific advice provided through what I call the official expert advisory process.
That advice can and does come from many sources; but the main single channel for it, indeed the only channel of advice for governments collectively, has been the series of massive and wide-ranging Assessment Reports produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The most recent of these, referred to for short as AR4, was completed and published in 2007. Work on its successor is now under way.
Throughout the series of Assessment Reports, from 1990 onwards, what has chiefly carried weight has been the presentation of climate science in the reports from the Panel’s Working Group I. In this connection, continuing unqualified praise for the Panel’s work and role has come, not only from its member governments, but also from many scientists outside the field of climate science and from leading scientific academies across the world.
It is often claimed that there now exists a world-wide scientific consensus on climate change issues, sometimes described as ‘overwhelming’. I believe that such language is inappropriate; but I think it is correct to say that alongside the official policy consensus (which is a reality), and providing both rationale and support for it, there exists an established body of what I call prevailing scientific opinion.
Continues with "A spectrum of opinions"
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News articles relevant to current events as advised via CCNet newsletter edited by Dr Peiser of the GWPF:
*****IPCC Official: “Climate Policy Is Redistributing The World's Wealth” - Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 14 November 2010
Jairam Ramesh: 'Dependence On British Climate Science Has Cost Us' - The Hindu, 17 November 2010
Green Pork Fight: US Administration Begs China To Subsidise US Industry - Voice of America, 17 November 2010
Richard Lambert, Nigel Lawson & David King At The CBI Climate Summit - BBC News, 17 November 2010
Britain's Climate Policy In Disarray - The Daily Telegraph, 18 November 2010
Without Government Intervention, Natural Gas Would Be Too Cheap, Huhne Says - Bloomberg, 17 November 2010
The €1trn Euro Decade: Costs Up, Risks Up, But Governments Are Still In Denial - Citi Investment Research & Analysis, GWPF October/November 2010
Poland: A European Kuwait? - Deutsche Welle, 17 November 2010
Not Only Climate Science Needs Good Auditors - Accountancy Age, 18 November 2010
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Tributes to Brian G. Marsden, Eminent Astronomer, who died after a prolonged illness.
This might be off-topic on some of the lists to which I am a member of . . . but it is a very sad piece of news that everyone in the astronomical community should be made aware of. Brian was a good friend . . . a brilliant man . . . and one of the nicest people in the astronomical community. As those of the Jewish faith would say, a real mensch. -- Joe Rao
You're doing a great job and have been extraordinarily patient in ensuring that all reasonable sides of an issue are covered on CCNet. --Brian Marsden (1937-2010)
Dr. Marsden's full biography is available online.
Brian Marsden's Comments and Essays on CCNet
New Type Of Transneptunian Object Recognized
One-Mile-Wide Asteroid To Pass Closer Than The Moon In 2028
No Asteroid Impact In 2028
IAUC 6879 And An Explanation
The Value Of The 1997 XF11 Precovery
CCNet Essay: Thoughts At The Start Of The False Millennium
What Are The Lessons From 1997 XF11 And 1999 AN10?
It Pays To Save Old Photographs
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Tributes to Brian G. Marsden, Eminent Astronomer, who died after a prolonged illness.
This might be off-topic on some of the lists to which I am a member of . . . but it is a very sad piece of news that everyone in the astronomical community should be made aware of. Brian was a good friend . . . a brilliant man . . . and one of the nicest people in the astronomical community. As those of the Jewish faith would say, a real mensch. -- Joe Rao
You're doing a great job and have been extraordinarily patient in ensuring that all reasonable sides of an issue are covered on CCNet. --Brian Marsden (1937-2010)
Sky & Telescope, 18 November 2010 Kelly Beatty
CFA Press Release: Brian Marsden, Eminent Astronomer and Comet/Asteroid Tracker, DiesDr. Marsden's full biography is available online.
Brian Marsden's Comments and Essays on CCNet
New Type Of Transneptunian Object Recognized
One-Mile-Wide Asteroid To Pass Closer Than The Moon In 2028
No Asteroid Impact In 2028
IAUC 6879 And An Explanation
The Value Of The 1997 XF11 Precovery
CCNet Essay: Thoughts At The Start Of The False Millennium
What Are The Lessons From 1997 XF11 And 1999 AN10?
It Pays To Save Old Photographs
