
European Investment Bank to phase out fossil fuel financing - hekocelsius
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/15/european-investment-bank-to-phase-out-fossil-fuels-financing
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jobigoud
The contrast with the other front page article "Paypal stops payouts to
pornhubs models" is interesting. On one hand we don't like it when banks use
their power to implement their moral panic regarding otherwise legal
activities, on the other it's nice that they use it to avoid financing things
we consider bad for the commons.

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ATsch
Not sure what's supposed to be interesting about that.

It is good when good things happen and bad when bad things happen, yes.

We don't need to lock ourselves into some kind of universal ethical conclusion
here.

~~~
journalctl
They’re also entirely different issues. One is about handling to payment for
people who are not really harming anyone (or at least not doing massive
environmental damage). The other is... doing massive environmental damage.

Cool, so I guess we just downvote stuff we disagree with.

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solarhoma
For the past five years O&G E&P companies have been realizing significant
loses in a shale driven production world. Where NA producers are quick to turn
on the taps and drown the market in oil once $WTI hits $55/bbl. with this
comes instability and loss of Wall Street backing. Banks are labeling this as
a way to show them in a good light. I.e. ‘fight climate change.’ The actuality
is that the want better returns in a more stable environment.

I apologize for poor formatting on my phone.

~~~
armSixtyFour
Exactly this, and if looks good from a social perspective that's just an added
bonus.

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spodek
Soon decisions like this won't make headlines because it will be normal not to
invest in industries based on increasing suffering.

Do we support investing in blood diamonds, no matter how profitable?

~~~
H8crilA
$XLE for those that want to pick up cheap stocks.

Till there's a global solution to the energy problem we'll need oil. Existing
solutions are nowhere close to being sufficient, therefore divestment will
have no impact on the amount of oil burned. It's ridiculous to think that
clicking a sell button on some assets will fix global warming, that's not how
the world works.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption)

As Bill Gates says, we need to fight two fronts of misinformation: a) that
global warming is not a problem, and b) that it is an easy problem.

~~~
maest
> $XLE for those that want to pick up cheap stocks.

A nuance is that you don't want to buy into these stocks while people are
moving away from vice stocks.

However, once the trend is stabilised and there are no more marginal investors
to adopt a vice-free portfolio, then you should buy all the vice stocks as
they will have a more favourable discount rate.

~~~
scarmig
I remember immediately after Deepwater Horizon, RIG dropped something like 50%
to $40 a share or so. I invested heavily in it, proud of my own savviness and
cynicism.

That worked out well.

~~~
perl4ever
I found that investing in BP when people were at their most pessimistic about
the well being capped _did_ work well.

Unfortunately, following up that success by buying into TEPCO once it had
dropped by half after their accident turned out not to be a good move.

However, one may console oneself that it was a public service in providing
some cash to the Japanese pension funds, proverbial widows and orphans and
whatnot that were selling at that time.

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Bostonian
The European IBank is an arm of the European Central Bank. The mandate of the
ECB is to provide a stable currency, not to combat climate change. That is
something for the European parliament and the governments of EU countries to
tackle.

~~~
et2o
That is not the mandate of the EIB and has never been. From their website:
“The European Investment Bank is the lending arm of the European Union.”

From the first paragraph on Wikipedia: “As a ‘policy-driven bank’ whose
shareholders are the member states of the EU, the EIB uses its financing
operations to bring about European integration and social cohesion. It should
not be confused with the European Central Bank.”

About their mission: “ As the ‘Bank of the European Union’. the EIB's mission
is to make a difference to the future of Europe and its partners by supporting
sound investments which further EU policy goals.”

So this is exactly the kind of thing they do.

