Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced new restrictions limiting the State Board of Administration from considering political factors — Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) — when investing the state’s money:
BREAKING: Governor DeSantis takes a stance against ESG.
ESG is a scale investors/companies use to finance based on what companies do for the environment, social stances, political stances etc. (simplified version).
— Lydia Nusbaum (@LydiaNusbaum) July 27, 2022
Ka-boom:
DeSantis announced that the state board of administration fund managers will not be allowed to use political factors when using the states money.
The board manages state pensions funds.
— Lydia Nusbaum (@LydiaNusbaum) July 27, 2022
Gov. DeSantis is so far ahead of anyone else in the GOP right now it’s scary:
"You have a handful of people in Davos deciding all this — that this is how we are supposed to live? Not here in the state of Florida."
– @GovRonDeSantis fighting back against the ESG cartel— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) July 27, 2022
Watch here:
Gov. DeSantis Hits Back Against ESG Funds https://t.co/jXzK71Pq9P
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) July 27, 2022
And this move comes at a time when the whole ESG (scam) is beginning to unravel:
ESG is often well-meaning but it is deeply flawed. The industry is a mess and needs to be ruthlessly streamlined https://t.co/MYckpsIcX8 pic.twitter.com/wX63JEwOb4
— The Economist (@TheEconomist) July 21, 2022
Elon Musk has often criticized ESG. . .
I have yet to see an ESG list that *isn’t* fraudulent
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 1, 2022
. . .and how it’s been “weaponized by phony social justice warriors”:
Exxon is rated top ten best in world for environment, social & governance (ESG) by S&P 500, while Tesla didn’t make the list!
ESG is a scam. It has been weaponized by phony social justice warriors.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 18, 2022
Boy, it’s funny how one cold winter will upend years of ESG compliance!
Return of coal a threat to European companies' ESG ratings https://t.co/EQQ6UyOUe1 pic.twitter.com/u2ScmCJD6m
— Reuters (@Reuters) July 26, 2022
And there are real-world implications to ESG implementation, especially in the shipping industry. From gCaptain:
Shipping's New ESG Rules Could Starve Millions https://t.co/8dm3rewuuA
— Greg Pollowitz (@GPollowitz) July 26, 2022
In summary, shipping companies need to slow down their fleets to meet ESG targets but what this does is create a “massive reduction in fleet capacity”:
While older ships can be retrofitted with devices to lower emissions and meet EEXI requirements, analysts say the fix most ship owners will take is just to go slower, with a 10% drop in cruising speeds slashing fuel usage by almost 30%, according to marine sector lender Danish Ship Finance.
“They’re basically being told to either improve the ship or slow down,” said Jan Dieleman, president of Cargill Ocean Transportation, the freight division of commodities trading house Cargill, which leases more than 600 vessels to ferry mainly food and energy products around the world.
This strategy also reduces the amount of wear and tear on the vessel, which can help extend the life of the ship. But there is one ancillary effect: a potentially massive reduction in fleet capacity.
And an unnecessary reduction in capacity could make the current food and energy crisis worse:
While the Index is designed to motivate shipowners and operators to invest in energy efficiency measures, it comes with unintended consequences. Most notably, slowing down ships to improve their energy efficiency could worsen the global food and energy crisis. The IMO and Poseidon Principles signatories should carefully reconsider their allowance for slow steaming and take into account humanitarian food and energy concerns when calculating ESG scores.
There is still time to avoid exacerbating the current food and energy crisis – it may even be possible to avoid famine and reduce carbon emissions – but it will require either the temporary abandonment of decarbonization goals – which would be a hard pill for the industry to swallow – or brave leadership from someone like Gary Vogel and the inclusion of humanitarian, food, and energy concerns in an already complicated set of ESG indexes and Poseidon Principles.
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