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Stephen Heins's avatar

Roger, as you might guess, I am highly suspicious of all emissions reduction strategies: Carbon tax, carbon offset, cap and trade, and ESG.

Since my membership in Chicago Climate Exchange and advisory committee for EU-ETS in 2004, I have thought that none of the strategies can accurately provide the material facts of energy consumption for publicly traded companies. You know, measured and verified units on a balance sheet that an accounting firm could sign off.

Ultimately, all strategies are quite vulnerable to gaming, greenwashing, and downright fraud in national and international markets. In particular, ESG has so many different sets of rules and regulations that no two countries have the same sets.

My guess is that the global economy will need to make much better use of “The Cloud Revolution”, Mark Mills recently wrote about.

To be more precise, it is likely to take decades before ESG can be properly monetized, but that doesn't mean ESG cannot be a guide for all.

P.S. You will notice I haven't even brought up the problems of Wall Street’s fiduciary responsibility.

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Mark Silbert's avatar

I agree that ultimately our energy system will have to move away from the present heavy reliance on the burning of fossil fuels. There are many reasons for this. Climate Change may or may not be the most important driver. In my opinion it is not.

Our goal should be the facilitation of the steady and intelligent shift to other forms of energy generation, not Net Zero. Net Zero may be a result of this shift but it is a fools errand to focus on it as the main objective.

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