Institutions worth $2.6 trillion have now pulled investments out of fossil fuels.

Coalition of 2,000 individuals and 400 institutions are shifting assets from coal, oil and gas companies to tackle climate change

Leonardo DiCaprio and over 2,000 individuals and 400 institutions are now committed to pulling their money from fossil fuel companies, together representing a remarkable $2.6tn of investments, it was revealed on Tuesday.

A new analysis shows the value of the funds committed to selling off their investments in coal, oil and gas companies has rocketed in the last year, rising 50-fold. Major pension funds and insurance companies have joined the universities and churches that founded the divestment movement, all of whom fear the impact of climate change on both the world and the value of their investment portfolios.

World's energy systems at risk from global warming, says industry group
Energy grids, power stations and distribution networks are vulnerable to storms, flooding and heatwaves caused by climate change, says World Energy Council

The world’s energy infrastructure is at risk from the extreme weather expected to result from climate change, a group of prominent energy companies has warned.

Energy systems, including fossil fuel power stations, distribution grids, and the networks that reach to people’s homes, are all at risk from effects such as flooding, severe storms and sea level rises, according to a new report from the World Energy Council, which brings together energy companies, academics and public sector agencies.

When energy systems fail, the knock-on effects on other aspects of modern infrastructure - from water and sewage to transport and health - can be catastrophic.

Experts point to the effects of Hurricane Sandy in New York to show that these effects are not limited to the developing world, where most of the serious consequences of climate change are expected to wreak havoc, but will be felt even in the most modern of cities.

Top US scientist Hal Lewis resigned from his post at the University of California after admitting that global warming was a big scam, in a shocking resignation letter.

[snip]

It is of course, the global warming scam [which has caused him leave], with the (literally) trillions of dollars driving it, that has corrupted so many scientists, and has carried APS before it like a rogue wave. It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist. Anyone who has the faintest doubt that this is so should force himself to read the ClimateGate documents, which lay it bare. (Montford’s book organizes the facts very well.) I don’t believe that any real physicist, nay scientist, can read that stuff without revulsion. I would almost make that revulsion a definition of the word scientist.

The anti-science crowd has, with unintentional irony, compared his [Hal Lewis] words of resignation to “a letter on the scale of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door.”

Exxon's climate lie: 'No corporation has ever done anything this big or bad'

I’m well aware that with Paris looming it’s time to be hopeful, and I’m willing to try. Even amid the record heat and flooding of the present, there are good signs for the future in the rising climate movement and the falling cost of solar.

But before we get to past and present there’s some past to be reckoned with, and before we get to hope there’s some deep, blood-red anger.

In the last three weeks, two separate teams of journalists — the Pulitzer-prize winning reporters at the website Inside Climate News and another crew composed of Los Angeles Times veterans and up-and-comers at the Columbia Journalism School — have begun publishing the results of a pair of independent investigations into ExxonMobil. [cont.]

A former U.S. Department of Justice attorney who prosecuted and won the massive racketeering case against Big Tobacco thinks the agency should consider investigating Big Oil for similar claims: engaging in a cover-up to mislead the public about the risks of its product.
Sharon Eubanks, who now works for the firm Bordas & Bordas, told ThinkProgress that ExxonMobil and other members of the fossil fuel industry could be held liable for violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) if it’s discovered that the companies worked together to suppress knowledge about the reality of human-caused climate change. She said that, considering recent revelations regarding ExxonMobil, the DOJ should consider launching an investigation into big fossil fuel companies.

“I think a RICO action is plausible and should be considered,” she said.

In a recent interview with The Atlantic, billionaire tech magnate Bill Gates announced his game plan to spend $2 billion of his own wealth on green energy investments, and called on his fellow private sector billionaires to help make the U.S. fossil-free by 2050. But in doing so, Gates admitted that the private sector is too selfish and inefficient to do the work on its own, and that mitigating climate change would be impossible without the help of government research and development.

“There’s no fortune to be made. Even if you have a new energy source that costs the same as today’s and emits no CO2, it will be uncertain compared with what’s tried-and-true and already operating at unbelievable scale and has gotten through all the regulatory problems,” Gates said. “Without a substantial carbon tax, there’s no incentive for innovators or plant buyers to switch.”

Gates even tacked to the left and uttered words that few other billionaire investors would dare to say: government R&D is far more effective and efficient than anything the private sector could do.

“Since World War II, U.S.-government R&D has defined the state of the art in almost every area,” Gates said. “The private sector is in general inept.”

Fossil fuel companies risk plague of 'asbestos' lawsuits as tide turns on climate change
The UN says the world is poised for a sweeping climate deal in Paris. 'It is unstoppable. No amount of lobbying is going to change the direction'

Oil, gas and coal companies face the mounting risk of legal damages for alleged climate abuse as global leaders signal an end to business-as-usual and draw up sweeping plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions, Bank of America has warned.
“Some investors, such as philanthropic trusts and foundations, will also have to consider whether continuing to invest in high-carbon assets represents a significant conflict to their overall mission and objectives"
Prince of Wales
Investors in the City are increasingly concerned that fossil fuel groups and their insurers are on the wrong side of a powerful historical shift and could be swamped with exhorbitant class-action lawsuits along the lines of tobacco and asbestos litigation in the US.
“It is setting off alarm bells that there could be these long tail risks,” said Abyd Karmali, Bank of America’s head of climate finance..

Saudi Arabia could be bankrupt within five years, IMF predicts
Saudi Arabia generates 90 per cent of its income from oil - a commodity which has recently plummeted in value
Adam Leyland Saturday 24 October

Saudi Arabia’s cash reserves are in free-fall and the country could have only five years of financial assets remaining due in large part to the fall in oil prices, according to a report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

In its World Economic and Financial Surveys, released every October, the IMF said that the kingdom will suffer a negative 21.6 per cent “General Government Overall Fiscal Balance” in 2015 and a 19.4 per cent negative balance in 2016, a massive increase from only -3.4 per cent in 2014.

Saudi Arabia currently has $654.5 billion in foreign reserves, but the cash is disappearing quickly.

The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency has withdrawn $70 billion in funds managed by overseas financial institutions, and has lost almost $73 billion since oil prices slumped, according to Al-Jazeera. Saudi Arabia generates 90 per cent of its income from oil.

Earlier this year the kingdom doled out a massive $32 billion spending spree distributed to the public, to celebrate the coronation of King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.

In 2015 Saudi Arabia also bypassed Russia to take over the world’s third spot in military spending, with a defence budget of $80.8 billion. Meanwhile the war in Yemen, being carried out mostly by the kingdom, shows no sign of abating.

One chart that shows which Middle Eastern countries could run out of money in less than five years
Iraq, Iran, Oman, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Libya and Yemen could run out of cash in five years or less[/QUOTE]
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/busin ... 09511.html

snip

Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest oil producer but must sell oil at $106 a barrel to balance its books.

Macdoc wrote:another "victim" ....will not be sorely missed...

Published on Jan 7, 2015
Richard Muller became the darling of the climate denial community a few years ago when he made a number of statements questioning the integrity of climate scientists and science.
Since then, his own studies have (re)confirmed the rise in global temperature, and the cause, - human