Global warming, climate change, all these things are just a dream come true for politicians. I deal with evidence and not with frightening computer models because the seeker after truth does not put his faith in any consensus. The road to the truth is long and hard, but this is the road we must follow. People who describe the unprecedented comfort and ease of modern life as a climate disaster, in my opinion have no idea what a real problem is.
At its 2026 annual shareholder meeting in May, CFACT went straight to the top, asking BlackRock Chairman and CEO Larry Fink whether the world’s largest asset manager will let clients walk away from sustainability investing entirely.
At its 2026 annual shareholder meeting in May, CFACT went straight to the top, asking BlackRock Chairman and CEO Larry Fink whether the world’s largest asset manager will let clients walk away from sustainability investing entirely.
CFACT’s Melanie Collette put the question to Fink: “BlackRock has expanded Voting Choice to $3.76 trillion in eligible assets, which the company frames as respecting client preferences. Does that same logic of client autonomy extend to clients who prefer that their assets not be managed through a sustainability lens at all, and if so, how?”
BlackRock has spent years promoting Voting Choice as proof that it respects what clients want. Fine. Then the principle has to cut both ways. A pension fund or an individual investor who wants nothing to do with Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) screening deserves the same deference as one who wants more of it.
Fink chose to answer Collette’s question alongside two from climate activists demanding BlackRock abandon fossil fuels. The pairing said plenty. BlackRock catches it from both directions now, and Fink built one answer to absorb all three questions.
“We have shareholders with very different perspectives,” Fink said. “But as a fiduciary, all the money we manage belongs to our clients. We manage their assets according to their direction, to their wishes.”
He pointed to BlackRock’s product shelf as the answer. “Our clients can choose which companies or sectors or regions they want exposure to,” Fink said, noting that more than 90 percent of BlackRock’s equity assets sit in index strategies designed by third parties, which the firm is obligated to track. He added that BlackRock manages over $1 trillion in dedicated sustainable assets on behalf of clients who want them.
Then he pivoted to his favorite theme. “For several years, I’ve argued for energy pragmatism,” Fink said. “Meeting rising demand will require expanding supply across oil and gas.” But it also means expanding renewables, storage, nuclear, and the grid, he said. “The goal is not to favor one technology over another.”
Notice what Fink didn’t do: actually answer the question. Collette asked whether client autonomy includes the ability to opt out of the sustainability lens fully. Fink responded that clients have plenty of choices, including sustainable ones. But a bigger menu is not the same thing as a simple yes. The closest he came was his point about third-party indexes, which sounded less like a clear policy than an easy out: BlackRock just tracks whatever the index providers build.
Still, Fink now frames his message around fiduciary duty and “energy pragmatism,” not climate evangelism. That shift says a lot about how much the ground has moved. This is the same CEO whose annual letters once warned corporate America that climate risk was investment risk. The activists lined up to question him noticed the change, too. And they were clearly not happy about it.
The ballot itself was quiet. Shareholders considered four management items and not a single shareholder proposal, a change for a company that spent years as a magnet for ESG fights. All 19 director nominees were elected with an average support of roughly 97 percent. The ratification of Deloitte as auditor passed with about 95 percent. An amendment to a subsidiary charter, removing a voting provision adopted in connection with the GIP acquisition, passed with the support of about 77 percent of votes outstanding.
The one sore spot for management was executive pay. The non-binding say-on-pay vote drew support from only about 65 percent of the votes cast. It passed, but most large companies clear these votes with 90 percent or better. A third of the vote going against Fink’s pay package is a rebuke, and BlackRock’s board said it will “take that feedback into account” going forward.
Fink also used the meeting to highlight BlackRock’s momentum, pointing to nearly $800 billion in client net inflows in 2025, a 10 percent dividend increase, and plans for stepped-up buybacks in 2026. He also outlined a three-part digital assets strategy, saying BlackRock now manages about $130 billion tied to crypto ETFs, stablecoin reserves, and tokenized funds. He said the firm wants to become “the stablecoin reserve manager of choice.”
When asked about turmoil in the Strait of Hormuz, Fink noted that BlackRock manages more than $150 billion in the Middle East and described Gulf sovereign wealth funds as some of the firm’s fastest-growing relationships.
CFACT attends shareholder meetings like this one to put hard questions on the record and hold corporate America accountable for what it does with other people’s money. BlackRock says client preference is king. CFACT will keep asking whether that holds when the preference is no ESG at all.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has publicly shifted toward what he calls energy pragmatism, admitting that society now demands a balanced approach to meeting power needs rather than adherence to rigid climate agendas. This could be a pivotal moment for global energy policy, as one of the planet’s most powerful financial players steps back from decades of ill-advised “green” mandates.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has publicly shifted toward what he calls energy pragmatism, admitting that society now demands a balanced approach to meeting power needs rather than adherence to rigid climate agendas. This could be a pivotal moment for global energy policy, as one of the planet’s most powerful financial players steps back from decades of ill-advised “green” mandates.
BlackRock’s Reach
BlackRock is the world’s top financial manager, overseeing more than $10 trillion in assets that sway markets, companies and even governments. It delivers risk analysis tools that guide how firms allocate capital, set strategies and tackle issues from energy supply to corporate governance. BlackRock’s hand is in everything from pension funds to sovereign wealth, where its votes and investments steer decisions affecting wide swaths of society.
Fink points to China, which leads in new nuclear plants and vast solar installations while importing record volumes of natural gas and oil to meet surging demand. “Society has moved into a better position of having more pragmatism,” Fink states, “and what you’re hearing from me is I’m echoing what we’re hearing from our clients.” Better to have clients than ideologues steering the ship.
ESG’s Costly Effect
Fink’s tone matches his earlier report of $4 billion lost in ESG-linked assets in 2023, a hit from states like Florida and others pulling funds over concerns about politicized investing. BlackRock dropped the “weaponized” ESG label by mid-2023 and exited the Net Zero Asset Managers group in January 2025 amid antitrust probes and backlash from state governments.
Clients forced Fink’s hand after years of BlackRock deploying their money to advance ESG and related priorities, often with the encouragement of left-leaning managers of public pension funds like New York’s. Fiduciary duty – maximizing investor returns – had taken a backseat as the firm lobbied corporations on “woke” interests ranging from board diversity to cuts in industrial emissions. Now, with lawsuits mounting and states divesting billions, Fink invokes that same duty to justify pragmatism.
Fink’s reversal exposes the scam. BlackRock wielded trillions to warp board politics and policies, betraying investors for a clique’s dreams. Now, scrutiny and an outflow of funds force truth. Fink’s admission also validates what skeptics argued: Climate narratives overstated risks to advance costly fantasies. Data show no increase in extreme weather, for which emissions of CO2 have been absurdly blamed. Hurricanes, floods and droughts have followed historical norms.
Climate alarmists’ infatuation with wind and solar energy has run into the reality of physics. So-called “renewables” falter where reliability counts. Their intermittency strands grids during times of peak demands, hiking costs for families and factories. In contrast, fossil fuels and nuclear power human prosperity. They provide the dense, affordable and reliable energy required by modern civilization.
The campaign to abruptly replace them with low-density, weather-dependent alternatives was a mathematical impossibility from the start. A foundation of coal, natural gas and nuclear energy is needed to maintain a modern standard of living. This is why Asian industrial economies continually added fossil fuel capacity behind a veneer of “green” pretense.
Look at global patterns. Growth in wind and solar capacity covers only a small part of rising electricity needs. China builds nuclear faster than anyone and guzzles oil and gas imports to fuel factories and homes. Despite net-zero pledges, India accelerated domestic coal production while exploring small modular reactors to power its 1.4 billion people and hit 8% growth targets.
Even European countries that once championed rapid shifts to “renewables” began to reconsider after the 2022 energy crisis exposed vulnerabilities. In Germany, factories shut down and household budgets strained when Russian gas supplies tightened and wind and solar stalled during calm or cloudy periods.
After years of climate-driven experimentation – forced by deluded or dishonest politicians and business titans – the failures became too many and too consequential to be ignored. Little wonder that Larry Fink has turned his ear away from the rhetoric of alarm and toward client demands for strategic guidance.
Originally published in Daily Caller on March 24, 2026.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India. He served as a research associate with the Changing Oceans Research Unit at University of British Columbia, Canada
Under the deal, Vanguard commits to pursue engagement and proxy voting solely to further investors’ long-term returns. It also agrees that it will not attempt to direct portfolio companies’ strategies or advocate for steps to reduce carbon emissions, nominate directors, submit shareholder proposals, solicit proxies, or threaten to sell holdings as leverage to induce corporate action.
Under the deal, Vanguard commits to pursue engagement and proxy voting solely to further investors’ long-term returns. It also agrees that it will not attempt to direct portfolio companies’ strategies or advocate for steps to reduce carbon emissions, nominate directors, submit shareholder proposals, solicit proxies, or threaten to sell holdings as leverage to induce corporate action.
The settlement requires Vanguard, by the end of June 2027, to offer proxy voting to investors in funds that hold at least 50% of their assets in U.S. equities. Vanguard must continue to offer expanded choices through at least June 2032 and include an option to vote in line with management recommendations.
Finally, Vanguard must publicly disclose proxy voting records at least four times a year, withdraw from the Principles for Responsible Investment initiative, and avoid joining organizations that require climate-focused commitments or advocate specific emissions/output targets. The agreement explicitly names the groups Net Zero Asset Managers, Ceres, and Climate Action 100+.
In short, the settlement draws a bright red line between passive investing and activist corporate governance, effectively removing proxy power from a small group of asset manager stewardship offices and returning it to actual investors.
Climate watchers have watched environmental, social, and governance frameworks expand from emissions accounting to extensive scorecards intended to exert political pressure on companies. Major ESG ratings methodologies treat “packaging material and waste” as a key environmental issue, with a hyperfocus on plastic packaging use and waste intensity.
When index fund managers of the size of Vanguard focus on redesigning markets and use proxy votes and behind-the-scenes engagement to push “best practices” based on ESG scoring, they can shape real-world decisions such as capital allocation, production planning, energy policy posture, and corporate behavior on issues such as plastics. These activities are way out of their lane.
The appeal of index funds is the low-cost exposure to the market and the promise to everyday investors of tracking an index, keeping costs down, and not playing politics with investors’ nest eggs.
ESG stewardship blurred that promise.
Asset managers that hold meaningful stakes across large swaths of the market and coordinate efforts via shared alliances, targets, and engagement playbooks can exert centralized pressure. That was the issue at the heart of the Texas-led lawsuit. State attorneys general have alleged that coordinated climate-focused investing and stewardship harmed energy markets. The firms dispute the claims.
The Vanguard-Texas settlement signals a broader rethink inside the finance space. Just a day before the news of it broke, Net Zero Asset Managers relaunched with looser rules and fewer U.S. participants after a long suspension because of legal and political pressure.
Vanguard exited the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative in December 2022, citing concerns that collective climate pledges can blur individual firms’ positions. The settlement goes further, locking in constraints on Vanguard’s participation in climate pledge organizations and its stewardship posture going forward.
This settlement doesn’t end the ESG debate. It doesn’t decide the case against the remaining defendants. Still, make no mistake: When one of the largest asset managers in the world agrees to step back from the ESG stewardship model that has blurred passive investing with activist corporate management, it’s a big deal.
This is a win for fiduciary clarity, investor sovereignty, and anyone who believes private alliances and ideological scorecards shouldn’t dictate America’s energy future. It doesn’t matter whether the issue is energy or plastics. Whatever the next “environmental priority” ESG managers decide to impose, the principle will be the same: Markets work best when they are driven by consumers and shareholders, not coordinated political campaigns disguised as investment stewardship.
She comes to CFACT (Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow) with a background in environmental/energy policy work, especially in combatting the offshore wind turbine groups and green organizations in their plans for northeast construction of wind farms up and down the Atlantic coast.
As a policy analyst for CFACT and host of the podcast How Money Works with Melanie Collette, she’s made it her mission to speak out against harmful or inadequate social and public policy issues, simplify economics and energy issues, and empower others with practical financial wisdom.
Before stepping into the national spotlight, Melanie spent over 24 years in education, with 12 of those years dedicated to teaching business and technology.
Her background as a former educator and current Cape May County Commissioner in New Jersey speaks to her deep commitment to serving her community.
Beyond her local leadership roles, she’s also a former Vice Chair of the New Jersey Federation of Republican Women and now serves as Vice Chair of the Cape May County GOP.
When she’s not analyzing policy or sharing money tips, Melanie is a regular face on television, known for her sharp, thought-provoking commentary on today’s hottest issues.
With more than 400 on-screen appearances—and adding 3 to 5 new segments weekly—her voice has become a trusted resource on the intersections of media, education, and policy.
Melanie’s public policy work and her passion for financial literacy has made her a sought-after speaker nationwide.
Whether delivering keynote addresses or joining panel discussions, she inspires audiences with her unique blend of experience, insight, and unwavering dedication to empowering others.
“There is no evidence that UN COP meetings and more than $10 trillion spent on renewables over the last 30 years have affected the climate. The average atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, which is blamed for global warming, has been rising over the last 50 years without any change to the trend.”
“There is no evidence that UN COP meetings and more than $10 trillion spent on renewables over the last 30 years have affected the climate. The average atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, which is blamed for global warming, has been rising over the last 50 years without any change to the trend.”
World leaders are in turmoil. For 30 years, the United Nations, World Economic Forum, and International Energy Agency, among business and political leaders called for a shift from hydrocarbon fuels to renewable energy. Thousands of laws were enacted to try to force a net zero energy transition. But it’s now clear that green energy is unable to meet the needs of growing developing nations or support the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution in advanced nations.
Since the founding of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992, the UN has led efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to try to fight human-caused global warming. Delegates from more than 180 nations meet at the annual UN Conference of the Parties (COP) to discuss climate action, with recent COP attendance exceeding 50,000 attendees.
But there is no evidence that UN COP meetings and more than $10 trillion spent on renewables over the last 30 years have affected the climate. The average atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, which is blamed for global warming, has been rising over the last 50 years without any change to the trend.
The World Economic Forum (WEF), a forum of business leaders established in 1971, states: “business should not only create economic value but also serve society and the planet.” At the WEF Sustainable Development Impact Summit in 2020, more than 4,500 leaders called for a “Great Reset for Sustainable Development,” committing to reach Net Zero by 2050 or sooner.
Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) was established in 2004 by the UN as a framework to evaluate a company beyond traditional financial metrics. Of high importance in ESG is a firm’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and support policies to fight climate change.
But net zero policies cannot support the energy needs of growing developing nations. Also, the rise of artificial intelligence drives a huge need for electrical power in advanced nations that cannot be supplied by intermittent green energy sources. Businesses and political leaders now realize that Net Zero and ESG are not the keys to the future.
Today, more than 6,500 coal-fired power plants operate with more than 1,000 new plants in planning or under construction. Coal plants provided 34% of world electricity in 2024, the leading source. Leaders call for an end to coal-fired power, but coal consumption grew to an all-time high in 2024. Still, 700 million people still do not have access to electricity and about two billion suffer blackouts or brownouts every other day.
In 2021, Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), said,”If governments are serious about the climate crisis, there can be no new investments in oil, gas, and coal from now—from this year.” But last year the IEA World Energy Outlook predicted that oil demand would continue to increase to 2050 and that gas consumption would increase 30% by 2050 in their “current policies scenario.”
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright recently pointed out that each of the billion people in the developed world uses about 13 barrels of oil per year, while a developing nation resident uses only about three barrels per year. The US and Europe have one or two vehicles per person compared to less than one vehicle for every ten people in Africa or India. Residents of wealthy nations use ten times the plastic used by people in developing countries. Developing countries will propel the demand for hydrocarbon fuels to better their standards of living.
The AI revolution now drives the need for electric power in wealthy nations. The US and China are competing for AI dominance and Europe wants to join the battle. Data center construction is skyrocketing to support AI. Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft invested over $380 billion last year on AI infrastructure, a total larger than the gross domestic product of more than 140 nations.
Larry Fink, co-chair of the WEC and CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest investment fund, said at the WEC conference last month, “You cannot rely solely on intermittent sources like wind and solar. You need dispatchable power because these data centers cannot simply turn on and off.” AI data centers are being powered by natural gas and in some cases nuclear power.
Leading firms pledged to become Net Zero, but the AI revolution is shattering those plans. In 2020, Google announced a goal to operate on carbon-free energy by 2030. But in 2024 Google admitted their emissions rose 48% over the last four years due to AI-driven services.
In 2020, petroleum company BP launched a $200 million “environmentally friendly” public relations campaign. The firm rebranded itself as “Beyond Petroleum,” pledging to reduce oil and gas production 40% by 2030 and to boost investments in renewable energy. Shell, ExxonMobil, and Chevron all announced plans to invest in renewables or green technologies such as carbon capture and storage.
But oil and gas firms found that renewables couldn’t make money, even with government subsidies. Returns on renewable projects were about six percent while oil and gas project returns were over ten percent. BP and Shell scaled back their renewable goals and investments in 2025.
In 2020, Larry Fink declared that he intended to use the trillions of US dollars managed by BlackRock to address global warming. Almost every major financial institution pledged to reduce emissions. ESG became a defining feature of Wall Street investing. More than 100 companies joined Climate Action 100+ to focus on reducing emissions globally. The UN-convened Net Zero Banking Alliance was established in 2021 and quickly grew to 140 financial institutions.
The Great Reversal
But a conservative backlash attacked financial industry support for ESG and climate action. Republican legislatures in the US introduced more than 100 bills to penalize financial companies that supported ESG practices. Republican state treasurers withdrew money from BlackRock.
As a result, climate and ESG efforts in the financial industry have collapsed. After Donald Trump’s re-election in November 2024, almost every US financial institution pulled out of the Net Zero Banking Alliance, causing the group to fold. Dozens of firms left Climate Action 100+. European firms also pulled back from climate commitments.
The shutdown of US climate policies during President Trump’s second term have devastated the global climate movement. The US has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement and the UNFCCC and cut funding for climate organizations. A climate tax on shipping proposed by the International Maritime Organization was halted by US and China opposition. The ending of US subsidies for wind, solar, and electric vehicles heavily impacted those industries.
Microsoft founder and climate activist Bill Gates authored the bookHow to Avoid a Climate Disaster in 2021. But last fall he changed his position. In a memo to COP30, he criticized the climate community for their “doomsday outlook” and focusing too much on “near-term emissions goals,” stating that “our chief goal should be to prevent suffering, particularly for those in the toughest conditions who live in the world’s poorest countries.”
In addition to US Republican opposition, other political parties withdrew support from Net Zero. Reform UK, which is leading in UK polls, coined the phrase “Net Stupid Zero.” Alternative für Deutschland, the number two party in Germany, calls wind turbines “windmills of shame.” Both the National and the Liberal parties in Australia scrapped their support for Net Zero last fall, concerned with green energy costs.
Conclusion
World leaders are pulling back from climate hysteria and demands for net zero energy. It’s time to return to sensible energy policy and to adapt to climate change, as humanity has done for all of history.
———
Steve Goreham is a speaker on energy, the environment, and public policy, and author of four books, includingGreen Breakdown: The Coming Renewable Energy Failure.
Editor’s Appendix: Goreham Posts at MasterResource
A mark of a true scholar is how his or her writings and conclusions stand the test of time. Steve Goreham’s writings for MasterResource for more than a decade read well today. His books and illustrations on climate/energy issues are excellent. And with his editorials in the Wall Street Journal (see here, here, and here) and other leading publications, this ‘talented amateur’ is running circles around leading academics on the same issues.
It’s kind of sad really. While mum and dad are busting their guts trying to build a future, woke teachers to whom they entrust their kids’ education are filling the kids heads with woke nonsense.
Can Business Alliances Move the Needle on Climate Change?
Featuring Peter Tufano. By Rachel Layne on February 6, 2026.
Who will champion environmental, social, and governance issues at a time when such causes are under fire? Peter Tufano says that business alliances could play an important role.
One of the first tenets of systems change is that ‘It takes a village.’ I have a particular interest in this topic because a lot of my career has been about collaboration in service of positive systems change through business. I cofounded the Innovation Lab at Harvard and joined with seven other deans to found Business Schools for Climate Leadership. These days, I lead a consortium of 150 schools and regulatory bodies to advance climate finance.
Our conclusion was that there was an ownership type, among public firms, that seemed to have less appetite for what we call ESG: Family firms, or firms with vestigial family ownership. The way that a family becomes an owner in a publicly traded firm is by selling stakes to non-family members. Public firms with remaining family ownership show far lower adoption of ‘ESG’ practices than firms with institutional, employee, managerial, or government ownership.
Given that families usually claim that they have longer-term horizons and greater social sensibilities, we tried to understand this finding in more detail. While perhaps family owners might tend to treat firms as piggy banks, it’s not just about ownership, but also about control. Where families are in the second or third generation, the firms are much more prone to adopt ESG practices, and when they are in charge, even more so.”
It’s kind of sad really. While mum and dad are busting their guts trying to build a future, woke teachers to whom they entrust their kids’ education are filling the kids heads with woke nonsense.
So, when the kids take over the firm, they don’t understand how damaging focusing on anything other than running the business is. They start living the ESG visions their teachers instilled in them.
I was going to say “and then the business fails”, but the case for this isn’t as clear – apparently the claim the third generation loses the business is a bit of a myth. Or maybe it isn’t, the sources I looked up are contradictory. Maybe by the third generation the business is robust enough to withstand a little ESG nonsense from woke third generation owners, if the founder and his or her successor picked the right senior managers.
It can be hard to explain to a general audience how important the release of the World Energy Outlook (WEO) is to policymakers, energy companies and investors who make hundreds of billions of dollars in investment decisions worldwide each year.
It can be hard to explain to a general audience how important the release of the World Energy Outlook (WEO) is to policymakers, energy companies and investors who make hundreds of billions of dollars in investment decisions worldwide each year.
The Outlook is published yearly by the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), one of the world’s most preeminent authorities on energy data. The IEA was formed in 1974 by many of the world’s most developed countries to provide better information on oil and gas demand forecasts in the wake of the 1973 OPEC oil embargo.
Beginning in the early 1990s, the Outlook included a Current Policies Scenario (CPS) that forecast future oil and natural gas demand over the coming decades based on current laws and government energy policies. This scenario was then used by banks and companies to extrapolate how many billions of dollars they must invest to satisfy coming energy demand.
The IEA’s all-star reputation made the CPS the benchmark for global energy supply and demand forecasts for decades – until recently.
In 2020, under its long-time Executive Director Fatih Birol, the IEA decided to abandon the CPS, “in part due to pressure from European nations and green campaigners,” according to Bloomberg energy analyst Javier Blas. Most of these green campaigners were interested in using climate policies to permanently displace oil and coal production.
To do this, IEA inserted new scenarios that considered policy ambitions and aspirations that had not yet become law. This analytical misdirection allowed Paris Accord-era net-zero emission goals to become a concrete forecasting reality. As a result, these forecasts showed peak global oil demand only an additional 3 million to 106 million barrels a day by 2030 before permanently declining.
Riding on IEA’s reputation, these forecasts helped the Davos crowd churn elite public opinion toward the Net-zero and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) framework in the early 2020s, which played a role in the ultimate suppression of billions of dollars in investment in carbon and hydrocarbon resources.
The IEA reinstated the Current Policies Scenario for 2025 after pressure from the Trump administration, while confirming that no peak in global oil demand should be expected until at least 2050. This is a welcome decision, but not before much damage was done, according to a recent report published by the National Center for Energy Analytics (NCEA).
The report, written by Neil Atkinson, a NCEA Visiting Fellow and the former head of the IEA’s Oil Industry and Markets division, and Adam Sieminski, former administrator for the U.S. Energy Information Administration, found that while reinstatement of the CPS in the 2025 WEO “has gone a long way toward answering that its scenarios are divorced from reality,” the IEA must still do more to reverse past mistakes.
The latest critique found that the IEA is still making a series of unsupportable market assumptions, including:
Electric Vehicles: Forecasts of electric vehicle adoption remain overly optimistic, leading to overestimates of oil demand destruction for light-duty vehicles.
Aviation: A forecast for even a small reduction in aviation fuel use remains overly aggressive.
Marine shipping: The IEA continues to present overly aggressive forecasts of a significant decline in crude oil use for global oceangoing shipping.
Even if the IEA fixes its methodological problems and appoints a new Executive Director, damage from the five-year absence of the Current Policies Scenario could last for a long time. Sieminski and Atkinson estimate that as much as $1.5 trillion of underinvestment in oil and natural gas exploration is expected over the next decade. Underinvestment in the oil patch leads to supply shortfalls, which inevitably brings about a spike in energy prices and a new, much higher price plateau.
By projecting a 2030 demand peak for oil, the IEA sacrificed its credibility, giving succor and elite air cover to organizations like the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, an UN-backed group whose members topped out at 140 banks with trillions of dollars in assets, pledging to align their portfolios with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
It is unknown exactly how much international investment banks withdrew from funding Arctic oil and coal resources, but many went on the record saying they did. The collapse of the Banking Alliance in the fall of 2025, driven by a combination of political pressure and market realities, will not make up for the consequences of a self-inflicted, years-long supply-demand lag.
The report’s authors do not go so far as to directly accuse the IEA of sneakily undermining the investment climate enough to create future recession-causing price spikes, but energy experts know that similar production shortfalls in the past have done exactly that.
In the 1970s, a barrel of oil went from $4 to a new plateau of about $32 a barrel by 1981, a seven-fold rise in the nominal price that crashed many national economies. In the super-spike era between 2004 and 2013, long-term oil prices roughly tripled while playing an underappreciated supporting role in the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.
If another major upward price correction arrives in the coming years, don’t forget to include the IEA’s willful errors when making a list of perpetrators. All government institutions are political, no matter how much structure is insulated from direct influence. Let’s hope the IEA has learned a lesson or two about the costs of believing there is a “right side of history” to be on.
William Murray is a former chief speechwriter for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the past editor of RealClearEnergy from 2015-2017, and has covered energy and environmental policy in Washington D.C., as a journalist and analyst for the past two decades.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and made available via RealClearWire.
For years, environmental activists have pressured the business world to embrace the UN’s aggressive climate and energy agenda. They know full well that corporate leaders won’t sign on voluntarily — doing so would mean skyrocketing costs, suffocating regulations, and peddling products that consumers simply don’t want.
For years, environmental activists have pressured the business world to embrace the UN’s aggressive climate and energy agenda. They know full well that corporate leaders won’t sign on voluntarily — doing so would mean skyrocketing costs, suffocating regulations, and peddling products that consumers simply don’t want.
Enter ESG: the “environmental, social, and governance” criteria that Greens devised as a tool to coerce compliance.
The strategy is clever and relentless. ESG advocates form “voluntary” industry groups that lock in their radical priorities from the start. Then, they lean on major corporations to join these pacts — or else face coordinated boycotts and damaging PR campaigns. Take the U.S. Plastics Pact, for instance: It’s a targeted assault on the plastics, food, and petroleum sectors, with an explicit mission to trigger a “profound paradigm shift” and drive “systemic change” in how these industries operate.
The good news? Resistance is building at last.
A coalition of state Attorneys General, led by Florida A.G. James Uthmeier, has written to environmental groups demanding to know how their use of the Pact to fuel their activism does not violate antitrust laws.
“Radical environmental activists do not have the right, nor the avenue, to suppress business operations in our market,” Uthmeier said.
Antitrust law outlaws combinations and monopolies in restraint of trade. These A.G.s assert that is precisely the mission left-wing climate pressure groups have taken on.
“We have grave concerns that this mission is harmful to our States’ economies,” the A.G.s said, “results in higher costs to our States’ consumers, unreasonably restrains trade, and reduces output and quality of goods and services.”
Institutional control and ESG are common tactics the Left uses to push policy it cannot achieve through law or regulation.
Bravo to these Attorneys General for calling out such abuses.
“Net-zero” has become the corporate mantra of our time. But every “green” solution from solar panels to EVs leaves a trail of negative environmental impact (and greenhouse gases, that do exist and help to keep a temperate climate on Earth) somewhere else.
Every time I hear a company announce they are going “net-zero,” I start looking for the asterisk.
And sure enough, there it is, buried in the fine print next to a “carbon offset” bought somewhere far away or a “renewable certificate” that’s already been sold three times over. We’re stacking „carbon credit“s nine layers deep and calling it progress.
This isn’t sustainability…It smells of greenwashing.
Greenwashing exists because it is being rewarded. Investors pay for the story, consumers buy the feeling, and politicians need the slogan…a collective illusion that let’s everyone look good while nothing really changes.
The truth is, ESG was meant to guide responsible investment and governance, but in practice, it’s become a tool for marketing, not measurement. Companies are claiming “green” status at every stage, from mining, to manufacturing, to financing, each one earning ESG points, each one waving the sustainability flag. Meanwhile, our planet barely notices.
Let’s get one thing straight: nothing is or can ever be “net-zero.”
Not wind turbines, not solar panels, nor hydrogen. Every “green” technology depends on fossil fuels at some stage… usually at all stages: mining, manufacturing, transport, and disposal.
We have created a trillion-dollar distraction as we are counting, offsetting, and trading emissions instead of making a truly positive environmental difference.
If everyone can claim “net-zero,” then who is actually reducing emissions?
I wrote an article on Greenwashing our Future and it coveres the lesser-known facts from banks quietly shelving their „carbon credit“operations to ESG funds being shut down by the hundreds, even major players like HSBC have abandoned „carbon credit“trading. Seems like regulators are finally catching up, banning vague terms like “climate neutral” and demanding proof behind the promises.
It’s becoming clear that “green” finance may be built on very shaky ground…the signs are hard to ignore.
My blog is not about being anti-environment but rather about being honest and pro-environment. The only way forward is through truth, accountability, and innovation.
Greenwashing is no longer just a corporate PR problem, it has become a systemic delusion.
We want to feel good. We want simple stories. We want to be told we are solving climate related issues by checking the right ESG boxes.
But the unpopular truth is this: We cannot buy our way to sustainability with carbon credits. Real solutions require real energy, real accountability, and real trade-offs…and until we are honest about that, we are not saving the planet, we are just telling an expensive fairy tale.
Major global asset managers including BlackRock and Blackstone have been looking to buy power utilities across America in a move that some industry insiders warn could harm consumers, raise electricity costs and advance a climate-driven energy agenda.
Major global asset managers including BlackRock and Blackstone have been looking to buy power utilities across America in a move that some industry insiders warn could harm consumers, raise electricity costs and advance a climate-driven energy agenda.
In recent months, Blackstone reportedly sought regulatory approval to buy utilities in New Mexico and Texas all while a BlackRock-led group won approval Friday to purchase a major utility in Minnesota. While BlackRock and other huge asset managers have distanced themselves from environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment practices in recent years, some energy experts and consumer advocates that spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation are concerned that buying up utilities may represent a new frontier of financial giants orchestrating “climate mandates.”
“BlackRock isn’t just influencing utilities anymore, they’re buying them. After years of ESG-driven coercion that pushed utilities to abandon reliable energy in favor of China-dependent renewables, BlackRock is now taking direct control. The result will be more of the same: higher costs, weaker grids, and millions in unpaid bills, all driven by the very climate mandates they lobbied for,” Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute, told the DCNF. “Minnesotans should brace for more unreliable power, rising rates, and a media narrative that blames Trump for ending taxpayer-funded handouts instead of holding the woke politicians and Wall Street elites responsible for the crisis.”
Against this backdrop, private investment titans like BlackRock and Blackstone are reportedly moving to buy power utility companies and invest in data center expansions and startups.
Minnesota recently granted the BlackRock-led group known as Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) approval to buy one of the state’s major power utilities, Allete. GIP is also reportedly on the cusp of acquiring the major energy company, AES, according to sources familiar with the matter that spoke with Reuters. The Financial Times reported that the deal may be for $38 billion.
BlackRock referred the DCNF to Allete’s statement on regulators approving its partnership with GIP and declined to comment further for this story.
Allete’s statement notes that the impending partnership with the BlackRock-led group includes “guaranteed access to capital to fund ALLETE’s five-year plan for advancing transmission and renewable energy goals [and a] $50 million Clean Firm Technology Fund to support regional clean-energy projects and partnerships.”
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) renewed BlackRock’s ability to own up to 20% of utility voting shares in April, with former FERC Commissioner Mark Christie stating that BlackRock “pledged not to use its holdings to influence utility management” and that utilities need the access to capital.
Christie also warned in September 2024 that “this is an issue that deserves much greater scrutiny” and that “the influence that large shareholders, BlackRock or otherwise, can potentially exert across the consumer-serving utility industry should not be underestimated.”
Blackstone has reportedly sought regulatory approval to buy out the Public Service Company of New Mexico and Texas New Mexico Power Co. recently, according to The Associated Press. The asset management giant also secured a 19.9% stake in a Northern Indiana public utility for over $2 billion in January 2024.
“Blackstone’s sustainability strategy prioritizes accelerating decarbonization by investing in the energy transition and driving value accretive emissions reduction in our portfolio,” Blackstone’s 2024 sustainability report states. “We believe the transition to cleaner energy creates meaningful investment opportunities for private capital. For over a decade, we have pursued attractive investments in companies and assets that are part of the global energy transition as part of our broader energy investing strategy.”
Blackstone also announced on Sept. 15 that private equity funds affiliated with Blackstone Energy Transition Partners will acquire the Pennsylvania-based Hill Top Energy Center natural gas plant for almost $1 billion. The company also announced in July that funds managed by Blackstone Infrastructure and Blackstone Real Estate would invest over $25 billion to help build out Pennsylvania’s energy infrastructure to support the AI “revolution.”
“Renewable” energy goals and ESG investment tend to align with emissions-reduction targets, with some power companies, utilities and states that set goals to cut emissions striving to retire conventional energy sources like coal plants. Isaac added that companies like American Electric Power, in which BlackRock owns a significant stake, have been decommissioning coal plants and replacing them with intermittent sources like solar.
“What happens is when the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining, then you have to ramp those generational assets back up, and that’s when price spikes happen,” Isaac said.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor of finance Greg Brown told the AP that the reason behind these buyouts are “very simple. Because there’s a lot of money to be made.”
Other experts devoted to consumer protection like Executive Director of Consumers’ Research Will Hild told the DCNF that investment companies like BlackRock stand to gain more than just a profit from these purchases.
“There is no world in which BlackRock’s ownership of American energy benefits ordinary American consumers,” Hild told the DCNF. “This is the same firm that proudly brought us the radical ESG rules and Net-Zero nonsense that forced all our energy bills to skyrocket. We wouldn’t have the scourge of woke capitalism without Larry Fink, who already controls nearly $13 trillion in assets and has been sued for violating anti-trust laws.”
ESG investors weigh a company by its social and environmental choices as well as its finances in a move that criticssay bogs down businesses with new costs while doing little to combat climate change. One August 2023 InfluenceMap report showed that as Republicans at the state level and in Congress ramped up their opposition to ESG-focused practices, BlackRock and other major U.S. asset managers decreased their support for climate-related resolutions.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink also said in June 2023 that he no will no longer use the term ESG because it has been “politicized,” less than a year after he noted that climbing energy prices are “accelerating” the green energy transition.
“BlackRock has backpedaled on its ESG messaging and its aggressive, unapologetic imposition of ESG on everything they touch. But the leopard hasn’t changed its spots,” President of the Heartland Institute James Taylor told the DCNF. “It still has the same management group with the same values, and it’s still doing whatever it can to impose ESG on everything it touches, in actuality, if not in name.”
Taylor argued that whether BlackRock buys or acquires a large stake of a utility, it “can now assert itself over legislatures in dictating energy policy.”
Notably, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) threw their weight behind an antitrust lawsuit against major asset managers that alleges the firms colluded to tank coal production with their embrace of zero-emissions goals in May.
The lawsuit, backed by 11 state attorneys general, alleges that BlackRock and multiple other asset managers used their market power to suppress coal production, thereby hurting consumers by causing the price of coal to climb.
The DOJ and FTC’s “support for this baseless case undermines the Trump Administration’s goal of American energy independence,” a BlackRock spokesperson previously told the DCNF. “As we made clear in our earlier motion to dismiss, this case is trying to re-write antitrust law and is based on an absurd theory that coal companies conspired with their shareholders to reduce coal production.”
Blackstone did not respond to the DCNF’s multiple requests for comment.
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Through ESG – Environmental, Social and Governance – mandates, the titans of global finance positioned themselves as the arbiters of corporate virtue. They pressured companies to divest from fossil fuels. They built an entire moral and financial architecture around the concept of decarbonization.
Through ESG – Environmental, Social and Governance – mandates, the titans of global finance positioned themselves as the arbiters of corporate virtue. They pressured companies to divest from fossil fuels. They built an entire moral and financial architecture around the concept of decarbonization.
But this June, two major events confirmed the slow demise of the great North American decarbonization experiment.
First, Nippon Steel finalized its historic acquisition of U.S. Steel, signaling a massive resurgence of energy-intensive manufacturing on American soil. Up North, the government of Saskatchewan announced its plan to keep coal-fired plants alive beyond 2030, openly defying federal regulations and international climate agreements.
They are not minor setbacks to the climate agenda but fundamental course corrections, powerful acknowledgments that the prosperity and security of nations depend on energy-dense resources and the industries they power.
Steel Deal That Shattered Green Illusions
On June 18, Nippon Steel acquired the legendary Pittsburgh-based company to reshape the global steel industry. The $14.9 billion transaction, one of the largest in recent industrial history, creates a powerhouse with a crude steel capacity of 86 million metric tons.
“Together, Nippon Steel and U. S. Steel are moving forward as the ‘Best Steelmaker with World-Leading Capabilities,’” says the press release. Massive capital will be unleashed across steelmaking facilities in Pennsylvania, Indiana, Arkansas, Minnesota and Alabama. The overall investment package is expected to protect 10,000 jobs and create 10,000 more in construction trades through the addition of a new electric arc furnace.
Steel production consumes enormous quantities of energy – primarily from coal and natural gas. The blast furnaces, coke ovens and electric arc furnaces that make up the lifeblood of steel mills are not powered by solar panels or wind turbines. They are powered by carbon-based fuels. Period.
This acquisition alone smashes multiple climate illusions in one blow. One, that emissions-intensive sectors would be phased out in rich countries. Another, that ESG-aligned finance would avoid “dirty” industries. And a third, that international treaties would keep governments and corporations aligned toward decarbonization.
Look who helped push this deal through. Citibank served as the financial advisor to Nippon Steel. Barclays, Goldman Sachs and Evercore were among the advisors for U.S. Steel. These are the same firms that plaster their websites with ESG statements and Net Zero commitments.
The same firms that swore to “align their lending portfolios with climate goals” and pressure companies to reduce carbon footprints. Yet here they are, actively greasing the wheels of a carbon-heavy industrial renaissance.
Saskatchewan Calls the Bluff on Coal Phaseouts
Then the same week, came another announcement, this time from the political frontier of Western Canada. The government of Saskatchewan made clear that it would extend the life of its coal plants beyond 2030, despite federal mandates to the contrary.
Energy Minister Dustin Duncan was unapologetic. “We’re not going to let federal politicians in Ottawa tell us to turn off the lights,” he said. Citing energy security and cost stability for residents, the province says it will keep coal-fired plants past the 2030 deadline imposed by Canada’s federal Clean Electricity Regulations,
This open rebellion is framed as a strategic return to realism with no use of euphemisms such as “transition” or “temporary extension.”
Collapse of the Climate Narrative
The Net Zero facade has collapsed massively, undeniably, irreversibly – because no policy survives violations of the laws of physics and market demand. Despite trillions spent on “renewables,” their contribution to energy production has barely budged in two decades.
What we’re witnessing in North America is not an anomaly but rather the beginning of a new phase. In 2023, fossil fuels still accounted for over 80% of global primary energy use. Globally, energy-intensive industries are thriving. China, the world’s largest coal consumer, approved 106 gigawatts of new coal power in 2024 alone.
The thud you hear is the sound of the decarbonization fantasy crashing to Earth. The sigh is one of relief as common sense returns to the public square.
There is no post-carbon future on the horizon, only a post-illusion present. And fossil fuels remain the lifeblood of progress.
This commentary was first published by RealClearMarkets on June 27, 2025.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Associate at the CO₂ Coalition, Fairfax, Virginia. He holds an M.S. in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia and a postgraduate degree in energy management from Robert Gordon University, both in the U.K., and a bachelor’s in engineering from Anna University, India.
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