Thirty years ago, on this day, November 2nd, 1994,
Greenpeace trying to attack market perceptions of energy companies
GREENPEACE has launched a strong campaign to show that market perceptions of energy companies are overblown and do not take into account the potential impact of climate change.
The environmental organisation said yesterday that climate change presented major long term risks to the carbon fuel industry which were not adequately discounted in financial analysis.
Quoting a report released in London, Greenpeace said global warming was a long term risk to investors in the carbon fuel industry.
Wilson, N. (1994) CARBON PAPER’S CLIMATE RISK WARNING The Australian Financial Review 3rd November [this while their Redbank case was still pending – decision came down a week later]
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 359ppm. As of 2024 it is 423.7ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that Greenpeace had been banging on about the Climate Time Bomb [LINK] . The first UNFCCC Conference of the Parties was due to take place in another four months in Berlin. And Greenpeace was trying to rally the “responsible” and responsive within the capitalist sector to show up in every sense, especially the reinsurance industry. This is an entirely sensible tactic. I think it didn’t work, but that’s hardly Greenpeace’s fault.
What we learn is that capitalism is by no means a monolith. Intrasectoral and intersectoral battles are always going on. Groups like Greenpeace will try and enlist and mobilise, which you can call cowardly or you can call sensible – it depends how you’re feeling, I guess. None of it worked, many of us are gonna die messily and soon.
What happened next? COP1 happened. Insurance and reinsurance groups turned up for day one and then went home. The oil executives stuck around. Guess who won. And you can read more about this in Jeremy Leggett’s the Carbon War.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
November 2, 1972 – “Eco-pornography … Advertising owns Ecology”…
