NYT: Climate Movement ‘Is Changing Tactics After Trump’s Win’ – ‘Hunkering down at the local level’ – ‘Changes in tone & strategy…more rooted in joy’

 …
The climate movement also plans to spend the next four years hunkering down at the local level. McKibben’s newest organization, Third Act, a nonprofit group for climate activists older than 60 that he started about three years ago, is highlighting the push for change at the community and state level. Over the past 18 months, they’ve begun a new strategy: attending the meetings of obscure state agencies or commissions that hold a lot of power over the energy transition.“These are places that no one has engaged much with for decades,” McKibben said. “They’ve been protected by a force field of their own boringness.”


The Inflation Reduction Act should be defended as robustly as possible to keep money flowing into clean energy projects, McKibben said. And, he added, President Biden’s pause on liquefied natural gas export terminals — or what McKibben calls “carbon bombs” — should be made permanent. …

Wash Post: ‘How Elon Musk backed away from his climate crusade’ – ‘Once one of America’s outspoken voices on the threat of climate change, Musk now argues these existential risks have been overstated’

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/12/10/elon-musk-climate-change-worldview-trump/ Musk’s politics hadn’t seeped into Tesla. Then he axed its … The Washington Post:  The Tesla CEO was once an outspoken voice on climate change. But Musk now argues many risks are overstated. … Excerpt: Once one of the most vocal American executives on the dangers of climate change, Musk called for a ‘popular uprising’ against the fossil fuel industry in a 2016 film. […]

Take a bow! Bloomberg declares ‘ESG Is in Its Flop Era’ as Donald ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ Trump returns to WH – ‘Right-wing backlash has turned ESG into a four-letter word in terrified corporate boardrooms’

Bloomberg News: As a concept, environmentally responsible investing is in its flop era. Right-wing backlash has turned “ESG” into a four-letter word in terrified corporate boardrooms. Donald “Drill, Baby, Drill” Trump is returning to the White House. Bitcoin, possibly the least environmentally responsible investment on the planet, is at $100,000 and climbing.

No doubt, green investments are having a grim year. Investors pulled $24 billion from climate-related funds during the first three quarters of 2024, Bloomberg News reported last month, citing Morningstar data. I’d be shocked if that didn’t get much worse in the fourth quarter, during which “Trump trades” of all kinds, including Bitcoin, have been ascendant. Green energy would seem to be the antithesis of a Trump trade. You can already see the damage in the S&P Global Clean Energy Index, which has tumbled in the fourth quarter compared with the S&P 500 Index.

“Clean-energy stocks have struggled over the past year, particularly since the US presidential election.”

not easy

This is all about vibes. Fine, it’s a little bit about high interest rates, which hurt clean-energy investments. But it’s mainly vibes. Even before Trump’s election, corporate leaders were running scared from ESG in response to a political backlash led by Republicans at all levels of government. Last month, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued several large asset managers, accusing them of conspiring to use ESG investing to hurt the fossil-fuel industry. On Friday, Goldman Sachs said it was leaving the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (part of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, which is co-chaired by Bloomberg LP founder Mike Bloomberg and Bloomberg Inc. chair Mark Carney), joining a stampede of other banks out of such groups. Goldman, like many of its peers, suggested it had achieved a state of green independence and no longer needed the support of others. Maybe, but the subtext in all of these announcements is clear: It’s time to lay low.