Tuesday 12 February 2013

Oxford University launches programme to scare investors away from major energy companies



Former tory Secretary of State for the Environment John Gummer, now Baron Deben, who is the chairman of the UK Committee on Climate Change, yesterday celebrated a new low for the country's perhaps most famous academic institution, the Oxford University

The occasion was the launch of "a new research programme aiming to help investors identify assets that could be left 'stranded' by climate change, declining resources and the emergence of new green technologies."

This is how the Oxford University has chosen to describe the new research programme:

Asset stranding is currently little understood, but the implications are potentially very significant for polluting investments. The programme researchers, based at Oxford's Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, aim to find out which assets and sectors are most at risk and evaluate how investors, businesses and policy makers can best respond to the challenges.
To mark the launch, Rt Hon John Gummer, Lord Deben, Chairman of the Committee on Climate Change, will give a lecture at the School, highlighting the need for businesses and policy makers to adapt to the new economic landscape. He said: 'Investors continue to deploy hundreds of billions of pounds into polluting and unsustainable sectors. In many cases these investments will not be worth what investors think.
'Climate change, scarcer resources, and new disruptive technologies will reduce value and strand assets. If investors better understand the risks of investing in these assets they will be attracted to greener alternatives and see them as better business propositions and safer places for their funds. The programme is doing the further research necessary to help underpin this vital transition.' --
The programme is being supported by Aviva Investors, Bunge Ltd, Climate Change Capital Ltd and HSBC Holdings plc, with non-financial partners including the Carbon Tracker Initiative, Trucost and WWF-UK.
The warmist Guardian, of course highly supportive of the new initiative, adds this:
A report published earlier this year by HSBC found current internationally agreed carbon targets could see oil and gas majors, including BP, Shell and Statoil, lose up to 60 per cent of their market value.
Similar studies from the Carbon Tracker group have warned that fossil fuel companies will be unable to burn much of their declared reserves if governments are to meet their stated aim of limiting global average temperature increases to under two degrees Centigrade. 
In reality, the new Oxford University "research programme" is nothing but a partnership with envirofundamentalist WWF to scare investors away from the major energy companies, which produce the fossil energy needed to keep the UK - and global - industry and trade going and make it possible for the society to function. 
Shame on Oxford University for allowing itself be used as a tool for envirofundamentalist propaganda!  

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