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Goldman Sachs pledges $750 billion on climate change — bankers just want to save the world too

Posted By Jo Nova On In Big-Government,Global Warming,Science of Money | Comments Disabled

Just when you think banks are only in it for the money, along comes Goldman Sachs to advise us on the planetary atmosphere:

“Goldman Sachs released a 34-page analysis of the impact of climate change. And the results are terrifying.”

Banks, Climate Change, Money, Carbon trading, logos.

All these nice banks want to save Earth too.

Yusef Kahn, Business Insider, Sept 2019

For some reason (what could it be?) a few months ago the Goldman Sachs investment bank was gripped with a sudden urge to repackage the IPCC report. Perhaps they were afraid their clients didn’t watch CNN, the BBC, or, pick-any-channel, maybe they couldn’t afford a television?

“Despite the uncertainty around the timing and scale of the impact, it may be prudent for some cities to start investing in adaptation now,” Goldman says. “Urban adaptation could drive one of the largest infrastructure build-outs in history. Given the scale of the task, urban adaptation will likely need to draw on innovative sources of financing.”

In his abject terror, journalist Yusef Kahn forgot to ask if Goldman Sachs would profit from this.

The very day the UN Galactic Junket COP25 ended in near complete failure, Goldman Sachs was ready to step in with good news.

December 17th:

“Goldman Sachs pledges $750 billion on climate change”

Elizabeth Dilts-Marshall, Sydney Morning Herald

  • Goldman Sachs said it’s planning to spend $750 billion on sustainable finance-related projects over the next decade.
  • The firm also said that it will restrict financing to all new oil production and exploration projects in the Arctic, and that it would impose stricter lending requirements for coal companies.
  • “There is not only an urgent need to act, but also a powerful business and investing case to do so,” Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon wrote in an opinion piece published Sunday in the Financial Time
  • “To give us the best chance of combating climate change, governments must put a price on the cost of carbon” says Goldman Sachs, CEO David Solomon.

And what wonderful investment opportunities there are if governments can be hectored into demanding forced payments from citizens for better weather. But the profits in this are not so much in the suckers buying windfarms as is the banks doing the brokerage. The windfarm owners will be completely dependent on government rules in order to make any profit (and the fickle wind). Their market could evaporate and they may be left with a bunch of factories making intermittent random and sleep destroying volts that no one wants.

As Tyler Durden says —

750 Billion Reasons Why Goldman Is Rooting For Greta Thunberg’s Success

Tyler Durden at Zero-Hedge

Goldman CEO David Solomon announced the plans in an editorial in the Financial Times, where he wrote that there is “a powerful business and investing case” for the bank to take steps to address climate change and the growing worldwide opportunity gap. Very powerful: having failed to make almost any money from the bank’s last foray into carbon tax and cap-and-trade, Goldman is now seeking to directly appeal to fellow fake virtue signalers, who in turn will hope to extract capital from naive investors pursuing the oh so noble goal of only investing in green, renewable, and “clean” (whatever that means) projects. Goldman’s bottom line, assuming a blended 3% commission on the $750BN in financial services it sells to gullible clients, works out to about $22.5 billion – a “powerful business case” indeed.

…earlier this year Goldman worked with Italian electricity company Enel to raise $1.5 billion through a bond offering that linked the investments to Enel’s commitment to increase its renewable energy base by 25% before 2022.

Translation: Goldman made about $15 million selling a bunch of bonds to a bunch of “green” liberals managing other liberals’ money. Because when central banks have taken over the market and Goldman’s own trading desk is shrinking quarter after quarter, and when the coming negative rates will make Goldman’s recent investment into retail banking a disaster, one can always make money betting on liberal guilt,…

As I’ve been saying for ten years and six months that the main game is the international carbon market, and the main beneficiary are the bankers. Climate change is potentially a $7 Trillion dollar money making venture (for bankers).

If Goldman Sachs can earn twenty-two-thousand-million dollars for shaking a few green hands, why wouldn’t they hire a squad of science hacks to write reports and issue press releases? Indeed, they’d be crazy if they weren’t donating a few million here and there to Greenpeace types too. Who knows — there might even be a business case for hiring teams of astroturfing trolls? It’s only an idea.  But $22 billion in profits makes all kinds of things possible.

Nine years ago Deutsche Bank had the same urge to write a 51 page science report. They also built 70 foot tall clock towers of doom.

Here we go again in Climate Bubble 2.0.

The bankers are back.

h/t Treeman, Pat, Dave B, Hugh P.

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