Trump Presidency Doesn’t Change Everything for Greens

    The election of Donald Trump is earth shaking. Yet it feels somewhat familiar.  I am reminded of an experience at an international conference on the Greening of Industry in Seoul, South Korea.

It was just before the 2010 midterm elections of Obama’s first term, and I was the only American in the room. The speaker at the podium was speculating about the upcoming elections in the US. Would the Congress remain in pro-environment Democratic hands? or would environment- skeptic Republicans gain control?

Then the speaker said something I will never forget:

“We (the rest of the world) will carry on our efforts to accelerate the transition to a green economy regardless of the outcome of the US elections”.   

And so it is for those of us in the US who work to accelerate the transition to a green economy. We will continue to advance our agenda, with a sense of urgency, whether or not the Director of the Environmental Protection Agency is a climate denier.

We have never enjoyed a federal government with an explicit “state vision of ‘low carbon, green growth’…. supplying clean energy and jobs as a new engine for growth” as they have in South Korea and other countries.

We have always done more with influence than authority. 

The Mother of All Market Signals?

Unpublished letter to the Wall Street Journal

To the Editor: The Mother of all Market Signals

I agree with Greg Ip that pain and disruption comes when investors put their faith in beliefs that are proven wrong (“Behind the Pain: Misplaced Faith”, January 14, 2016, (p.A1). But his list of erroneous beliefs of the past decade omits an important one: the belief that oil prices and markets generally have nothing to do with climate change. My fear is that investors who believe that they can understand oil markets WITHOUT factoring in climate change will be proven wrong.

Actor Mark Ruffalo has called the Paris Climate Agreement:  “the mother of all market signals”.  What if the drop in oil prices is ushering in a transition to a clean energy future where oil deposits will be left in the ground becoming stranded assets, estimated by Citigroup analysts to be valued at $US100 trillion? What if investors divest from fossil fuel companies and reinvest in carbon-free assets? No wonder investors are ditching money managers when those managers fail to even consider the rising tide of investment strategies that take the risks of climate change seriously.

Trudy Heller, Ph.D.

Philadelphia, PA  USA