<
https://reneweconomy.com.au/macquaries-huge-gas-export-gamble-puts-more-than-investors-at-risk/>
"Macquarie Group began life in Sydney in 1969 with just three employees. Today,
Macquarie is one of Australia’s most powerful financial institutions, operating
across 30 markets globally, and boasting more than A$700 billion in assets
under management and A$4.8 billion in annual profit.
Expanding beyond traditional banking into almost every corner of global
finance, Macquarie’s rise has been driven by a particularly cutthroat form of
capitalism with an appetite for high risk in pursuit of higher returns.
But its approach to climate change is pushing that high risk-reward identity to
a disturbing extreme – treating the prospect of catastrophic levels of global
warming as a business opportunity for fossil fuel expansion.
At its annual general meeting (AGM) last month, Macquarie Chair Glenn Stevens
even remarked that the impacts of a 3°C hotter world, while uncertain, could
even prove favourable to Macquarie.
Climate experts and emergency leaders including former NSW fire chief Greg
Mullins are warning about what a possible “super El Niño” event would mean for
the Australian summer ahead. Yet Macquarie’s cavalier approach to fossil fuel
expansion should be setting off more alarm bells.
Ahead of the AGM, Macquarie weakened its climate position, replacing its
previous commitment to align all financing with net-zero by 2050 with a more
generic “ambition to support the goals of the Paris Agreement”.
Macquarie cited International Energy Agency (IEA) scenarios in which
governments fail to make further progress on the Paris goals as justification
for the Group’s position that “new, yet-to-approve conventional oil and gas
projects are needed”.
Many took Macquarie to task over this change in direction, including almost
one-fifth of shareholders, with some of the world’s biggest pension funds, who
backed a resolution at the company’s AGM, calling on the Group to explain how
its support for fossil fuel expansion is consistent with its climate
commitments.
Among those challenging Macquarie at its shareholder meeting were climate
scientist and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change lead author Professor
John Church, and former Royal Dutch Shell executive and Australian Coal
Association chair Ian Dunlop.
Mr Dunlop outlined that the IEA models Macquarie is using to justify its
aggressive increase in fossil fuel expansion, lead to temperature increases of
3°C that would be “absolutely catastrophic and … not liveable worlds.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
