You talked to a lot of the big institutional investors, things like
pension plans in Europe and United States, as well as the fund managers
invest their funds. What are you hearing in terms of a
divergence, possible dirge between Europe and the United States?
Well, there's incredible frustration of U.S.
pension funds because they understand that this is actually bad for business
and particularly bad for their investors.
And we're already seeing that in some conservative states where there's
proposed anti ESG legislation. Some of those, even Republican pension
fund managers are pushing back and saying that it's going to cost their
pensioners billions of dollars, both in fees to convert and to call out of
investments, but also in losses over the next few years.
And the reason for this is that if the United States businesses don't start
investing in the technologies that are going to abate greenhouse gas emissions
and also adapt to a warming climate, we are going to be losing out as a country
and as an economy, because Europe and Asia and particularly China are
investing in these technologies because they understand that climate change is
very real, that human activity and fossil fuels are major causes, as well
as some of the ways we we grow our food and use other technologies.
And so they are now already converting their energy systems.
They are investing in batteries, storage, electric vehicles, electric
stoves and other things. And and the United States business, if
if there is a chilling effect by this A.C.
legislation, it's business that's going to lose out and also consumers and the
economy in general before we even get to the investments in Kentucky.
And just talking about it, because we're having difficulty sometimes getting
people even to come on and talk about the issue because it's so politicized
and there's actually partisan politics going on with people's houses.
There's something a picket lines in people's houses.
Are you having a difficult time getting even, Bill, to discuss it publicly?
Yes, I businesses. I mean, I have been you know, I've I'm
also was a corporate lawyer and I've been speaking to some of my former
partners who are representing companies and who are basically afraid to talk
about the fact that these investments are good investments.
I mean, over the years, investing in new technology says driven down the cost of
solar and is driving down the cost of battery storage.
These are very good investments and they will actually lead to economic growth.
The other thing is these businesses know that they have to also you know, they
have to address climate change because they have to address the risk of climate
change. We already know that even this year
alone, we've had seven billion dollar climate weather events.
That's what Noah calls them there. They actually caused over a billion
dollars worth of loss and damage to businesses and to people in the United
States. And those instances are rising
tremendously over the last few years. And so that is another thing that
businesses want to do. They want to make profit, but they want
to avoid costs, obviously. And so that's a risk that they're that
they are also looking at. And I would also say that, you know,
interestingly, Norway's sovereign wealth fund is really taking that risk
seriously. They're basically saying that they're
not going to invest in companies that don't take mitigation of climate risk
into account when they're making investments.
They will actually deep disinvest from those companies is what they're saying
in a statement. I mean, when we talk about ESG, I'll
plead guilty this often. I think about the E, the environmental.
So the climate issues you just talk about.
But there is a national g as well. And it does strike me that one of the
issues that is really involved here and again, it's become very political is
diversity, equity and inclusion. To what extent are we having difficulty
taking that into account and talking about and making investments?
Well, that, too, has become incredibly politicized in what's known as these
culture wars. And and again, to DTI and training on
DTI. And there's a lot of legislation that
says, you know, we don't want business to do investing in diversity, equity,
inclusion in hiring diverse people, arguing that it's actually bad for
business, that they're less qualified and also not to invest in in leadership
training, inclusive leadership training, that that is a cost that they should
avoid. That's actually also counterfactual,
because the facts show that when you have a diverse workforce with inclusive
leadership that listens to those employees, that takes into account their
views, you actually add value to the company.
You actually create better outcomes on decisions because of the diverse
viewpoints of those people. So again, that's another thing that is
really counter to the facts. So the argument that that's bad for
business is actually not true. In fact, DTI and inclusive leadership
training is very good for business. So finally, I want to go back to your
day job. What do you do at Rockefeller Foundation
to address these issues? Well, we're actually using one of the
problems we have in addressing climate change.
There is a huge capital gap in what's needed from public funding,
philanthropic funding and private funding in enabling countries,
particularly in developing markets, to transition to sustainable energy
systems. And unless we actually can decommission
coal plants in some of these developing economies like South Africa, India,
Vietnam and Indonesia, we're never going to keep the warming of the client
climate below 2 degrees Celsius and above 2 degrees Celsius.
It's really catastrophic effects.