Climate Clown Warren Buffett Blocks Measure To Inform Investors Of Risks, Then Praises Chevron
The failed climate risk resolution garnered support from more than 25% of Berkshire shareholders at its annual meeting. That more than doubled the high-water mark for an environmental proposal at the company, no small feat given that Buffett alone controls more than a third of Berkshire's voting shares.
The support for the climate resolution — and another that called for a report on Berkshire's diversity efforts, which garnered 24% of votes — are a sign to some Wall Street giants that the conglomerate's 90-year-old chairman and CEO is increasingly out of step with mainstream investors. "The company is not adapting to a world where environmental, social, governance (ESG) considerations are becoming much more material to performance," BlackRock Inc., the world's largest asset manager, said after the meeting.
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Ahead of the vote, Berkshire's top executives spent several hours answering questions from shareholders submitted via email. In that freewheeling forum, Buffett and his lieutenants defended their investment in the oil major Chevron Corp. and downplayed concerns about climate change. "I think Chevron's benefited society in all kinds of ways, and I think it continues to do so," said Buffett, whose company at the end of last year owned a 2.5% stake in the California-based driller. "We're going to need a lot of hydrocarbons for a long time, and we'll be very glad we've got them." While Buffett acknowledged that the world is "moving away from" fossil fuels he said "that could change."
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Berkshire's leaders also cast doubt on the potential for catastrophic impacts from climate change, which most scientists say is increasingly likely if the world blows past 1.5 degrees Celsius of average warming. "What's happening will be adapted to over time, just as we've adapted to all kinds of things," said Buffett, who has a net worth north of $103 billion. Munger was even more skeptical of the scientific consensus. "I don't think we think we know the answer to all these questions about global warming and so forth. And the people that ask the questions think they know the answers," he said. "We're just more modest."
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https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063731533
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