Lex in the FT on capital’s Green U-Turn…
“One of the received tenets of the energy transition was that there was no trade-off between green investing and making money. The dirtier companies were going to underperform, while the cleaner ones would roar ahead. Investors could hence starve the former of capital and provide it in spades to the latter, doing their bit for the planet while making outsize returns. The narrative of a perfect correlation between doing good and doing well has now broken down. Witness the spate of high-level desertions suffered by Climate Action 100+, an association of investors that engages with polluting companies to reduce emissions. In a few days, it lost JPMorgan Asset Management, State Street and Pimco. BlackRock has moved its membership from the huge corporate entity to its much smaller international business. BlackRock has attributed its decision to the potential conflict between the aim of CA100+ to get companies to decarbonise and its own fiduciary duty to prioritise economic returns, at least for those clients — the vast majority — who have not given it an explicit climate mandate.”
Starmer loyalist and Housing Secretary Steve Reed told Sky News that Starmer should not be replaced:
“We saw what the Tories did. They were in power for 14 years, and after 2016, I think we had nine education secretaries, seven chancellors, and five Prime Ministers. Doomscrolling through Prime Ministers doesn’t resolve the problem.”