December, 01 2023, 10:09am EDT
COP28 Presidency Unveils new ‘Alterra’ $30 Billion Renewable Energy Fund in Collaboration with BlackRock and Brookfield
350.org Raises Concerns over Funding Claims and Safeguard Deficiencies
DUBAI
In an announcement today, the COP28 Presidency with investment giants BlackRock and Brookfield announced to establish a $30 billion fund dedicated to renewable energy in Emerging and Developing Economies. While scaling up investment in renewables is much needed, 350.org raises concerns regarding the accuracy of fund claims and the absence of critical safeguards against potentially harmful investments.
“In the pursuit of a greener tomorrow, we must scrutinize the COP28 fund’s bold claims. While in principle a step in the right direction, we would need to check that the claims by the presidency are not overblown. It seems that safeguards against dangerous distractions and projects that harm communities are missing” says Andreas Sieber, Associate Director of Policy and Campaigns of 350.org
The majority of the $30 billion fund is expected to operate at market rates rather than through concessional finance or grants – a financial approach deemed essential for the substantial upscaling of renewable deployment in the Global South.
Presently, the fund stands at a mere $6.5 billion, not $30bn and is only “expected” to attract additional funds, leaving the timeline for achieving the full “commitment” of $30 billion unclear. Of the total sum, $5 billion is planned to be designated for “risk mitigation capital,” in principle a positive step. Yet, this can be expected to come in the form of concessional loans which can help in particular to unlock private capital. However, 350.org expresses apprehension about the lack of safeguards to prevent the accumulation of unsustainable debt, for both market rate and concessional finance instruments.
“What we can take at face value right now is a fund of $6.5bn which will lend at market rates ‘for global investments, including the Global South’ – this isn’t wrong per se, but as such not a game changer and certainly not an adequate response to the financing needs of countries in the Global South” says Andreas Sieber, Associate Director of Policy and Campaigns of 350.org
While acknowledging the potential of concessional loans to attract additional private investment, 350.org questions the bold claim of unlocking $250 billion by 2030, deeming it potentially exaggerated and urging a closer examination of the fund’s feasibility.
The composition of the fund’s leadership raises further concerns, with three out of four members having a documented history of involvement in fossil fuel investments or having led fossil fuel companies. This has prompted 350.org to highlight concerns about the potential exclusion of essential renewable investments, such as Carbon Capture and Storage, and the need for a strategic shift away from fossil fuel-related endeavors.
350.org calls for a transparent and comprehensive assessment of the fund’s governance, ensuring it aligns with principles of responsible and ethical investment to effectively drive the transition towards a sustainable, green energy future.
Zaki Mamdoo, 350.org Campaign Coordinator, StopEACOP said:
“History shows that when rich countries extract fossil fuels in poorer countries there are usually consequences, like worsening social and economic inequalities on top of deepening the climate crisis. 30 billion USD of climate funds managed by the likes of these companies risk replicating the same systems that worsen inequalities. We must support affordable and energy-saving solutions.
We also need to put decision-making power in the hands of the many, instead of bankers. People should be actively involved in making decisions. Community-centered, community-led, and community-owned wind and solar energy projects are the models that will bring us to an energy transition rooted in justice.”
350 is building a future that's just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of the climate crisis. We're an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.
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"Under such an approach, the chair would regularly seek Trump's views on interest-rate policy and then negotiate with the committee to steer policy on the president's behalf," The Wall Street Journal reported.
Apr 26, 2024
Right-wing allies of former U.S. President Donald Trump are reportedly crafting a plan to give the executive branch control over Federal Reserve policy decisions, an effort that comes as the presumptive GOP nominee continues to signal his authoritarian intentions for a potential second term.
The Wall Street Journalreported Thursday that former Trump administration officials and other supporters of the ex-president "have in recent months discussed a range of proposals, from incremental policy changes to a long-shot assertion that the president himself should play a role in setting interest rates."
"A small group of the president's allies—whose work is so secretive that even some prominent former Trump economic aides weren't aware of it—has produced a roughly 10-page document outlining a policy vision for the central bank," the Journal reported. "The group of Trump allies argues that he should be consulted on interest-rate decisions, and the draft document recommends subjecting Fed regulations to White House review and more forcefully using the Treasury Department as a check on the central bank. The group also contends that Trump, if he returns to the White House, would have the authority to oust Jerome Powell as Fed chair before his four-year term ends in 2026."
During his first four years in the White House, Trump repeatedly criticized Powell—whom the former president appointed in 2017—over the central bank's interest rate policy and insisted he had the authority to oust the Fed chair before the end of his term. The Fed is an independent body subject to limited congressional oversight.
"I have the right to do that," Trump said in 2019 of ousting Powell. "I'm not happy with his actions, I don't think he's done a good job."
The Fed, still under Powell's leadership, has since jacked up interest rates to their highest level in decades in an attempt to combat inflation—an approach that progressive lawmakers and economists have criticized as misguided, arguing that prices were elevated primarily by pandemic-related supply chain disruptions and corporate profiteering and that hiking rates would harm workers.
Late last year, Trump said interest rates were "too high" but did not say he would pressure the central bank to lower them, saying: "Depends where inflation is. But I would get inflation down."
More recently, Trump suggested the Fed's indication that rate cuts are coming in the near future as inflation cools is a political ploy to "help the Democrats."
"It looks to me like he's trying to lower interest rates for the sake of maybe getting people elected, I don't know," Trump said in a Fox Business appearance in February.
Economist Paul Krugman predicted in his New York Timescolumn earlier this year that "Trumpist attacks on the Fed for cutting interest rates are coming."
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"And I hope that forewarned is forearmed," he added. "MAGA attacks on the Fed are coming; they should be treated as the bad-faith bullying they are."
The Journal reported Thursday that "several people who have spoken with Trump about the Fed said he appears to want someone in charge of the institution who will, in effect, treat the president as an ex officio member of the central bank's rate-setting committee."
"Under such an approach, the chair would regularly seek Trump's views on interest-rate policy and then negotiate with the committee to steer policy on the president's behalf," the newspaper continued. "Some of the former president's advisers have discussed requiring that candidates for Fed chair privately agree to consult informally with Trump on the central bank's decisions... Others have made the case that Trump himself could sit on the Fed's board of governors on an acting basis, an option that several people close to the former president described as far-fetched."
According to earlier Journal reporting, Trump's team has discussed several possible replacements for Powell, including former White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett and Arthur Laffer, a former Reagan adviser and notorious tax-cut enthusiast.
Trump allies' plot to help the former president exert control over Fed policy if he's reelected in November is further evidence of the presumptive GOP nominee's increasingly authoritarian ambitions.
During his campaign for a second term, Trump—who is facing 88 charges across four criminal cases—has vowed to be a dictator on "day one," wield federal authority to go after his political opponents, launch the "largest domestic deportation operation in American history," and use the U.S. military to crack down on protests.
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After about three hours of oral arguments Thursday on former President Donald Trump's immunity claims, legal experts and democracy defenders urged the U.S. Supreme Court to rule swiftly, with just over six months until the November election.
Trump—the presumptive Republican candidate to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden, despite his 88 felony charges in four ongoing criminal cases—is arguing that presidential immunity should protect him from federal charges for trying to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden, which culminated in the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Justices across the ideological spectrum didn't seem inclined to support Trump's broad immunity claims—which critics have said "reflect a misreading of constitutional text and history as well as this court's precedent." However, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) shared examples of what it would mean if they did.
"Trump could sell pardons, ambassadorships, and other official benefits to his wealthy donors, members of his clubs, or cronies who helped him commit other crimes," CREW warned. "Trump could sell nuclear codes and government secrets to help pay back crippling debts."
"But this isn't just about what Donald Trump could do. It's really about how total immunity for the president would threaten our democratic system of checks and balances," the group continued. "The president could order the military to assassinate activists, political opponents, members of Congress, or even Supreme Court justices, so long as he claimed it related to some official act."
After warning that a president could also order the occupation or closure of the Capitol or high court to prevent actions against him, CREW concluded that "the Supreme Court never should have taken this appeal up in the first place. They should rule quickly and shut these ludicrous claims down for good."
The organization was far from alone in demanding a quick decision from the nation's highest court.
"In the name of accountability, the court must not delay its decision," the Brennan Center for Justice said Thursday evening. "The Supreme Court's time is up. It needs to let the prosecution move forward. The court decided Bush v. Gore in three days—it should act with similar alacrity in deciding Trump v. U.S."
In Bush v. Gore, the case that decided the 2000 election, the high court issued a related stay on December 9, heard oral arguments on December 11, and issued a final decision on December 12.
On Thursday, the arguments "got away from the central question: Is a former president immune from criminal prosecution if he tried to overthrow a presidential election, using private means and the power of his office to do so?" the Brennan Center noted. "The answer is simple: No."
"It is not an 'official act' to try to overthrow the peaceful transfer of power or the Constitution, even if you conspire with other government officials to do it or use the Oval Office phone," the center said. "Trump's attorney was pushing the court to come up with a sea change in the law. That's unnecessary and a delay tactic that will hurt the pursuit of justice in this case."
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Barrett summarized various allegations from the indictment and in three cases—involving dishonest election claims, false allegations of fraud, and fake electors—Sauer conceded that Trump's alleged conduct sounded private, suggesting that a more narrow case against the ex-president that excluded any potential official acts could proceed.
Due to Trump attorney's concessions in Supreme Court oral argument, there's now a very clear path for DOJ's case to go forward.\n\nIt'd be a travesty for Justices to delay matters further.\n\nJustice Amy Coney Barrett got Trump attorney to concede core allegations are private acts.\u2b07\ufe0f— (@)
According to NBC:
Matthew Seligman, a lawyer and a fellow at the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School who filed a brief backing prosecutors, said Sauer's concessions highlight that Trump is "not immune for the vast majority of the conduct alleged in the indictment."
Ultimately, he said, the case will go to trial "absent some external intervention—like Trump ordering [the Justice Department] to drop the charges" after having won the election.
At the same time, Sauer's backtracking might have little consequence from an electoral perspective. Further delay in a trial, which Sauer is close to achieving, is a form of victory in itself.
Slate's Mark Joseph Stern pointed out that when Barrett similarly questioned Michael Dreeben, the U.S. Department of Justice lawyer arguing the case for Smith, it seemed like they "were trying to work out some compromise wherein the trial court could distinguish between official and unofficial acts, then instruct the jury not to impose criminal liability on the former."
"It was fascinating to watch Barrett nodding along as Dreeben pitched a compromise that would largely preserve Smith's January 6 prosecution but limit what the jury could hear, or at least consider," Stern added. "That, though, would take months to suss out in the trial court. More delays!"
Stern and other experts signaled that the decision likely comes down to Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts, with the three liberals seemingly supporting the prosecution of Trump and the other four conservatives suggesting it is unconstitutional.
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Twenty more demonstrators were arrested Thursday, the second day of Earth Week protests targeting Citigroup's Manhattan headquarters in what organizers called "the beginning of a wave of direct actions to take place over the summer targeting big banks for creating climate chaos that is killing our communities and our planet."
Protest organizers—who include Climate Defenders, New York Communities for Change, Planet over Profit, and Stop the Money Pipeline—said 53 activists were arrested over two days of demonstrations, which included blocking the entrance to Citigroup's headquarters, to "demand that the bank stop funding fossil fuels."
Organizers said this week's demonstrations "were just the beginning" of what they're calling a "Summer of Heat" targeting big banks for their role in the climate emergency and for "polluting our land, air, and water, and threatening the health of children, families, and our planet." Citigroup is the world's second-largest fossil fuel financier.
"We're holding Citi accountable for financing dirty fossil fuels from Canada to Latin America and beyond," said Chief Na'moks of the Wet'suwet'en Nation, one of several Indigenous leaders who took part in the action. "Through people-powered resistance, we can give money a conscience and stop Citi's destruction of our planet."
Jonathan Westin, executive director of Climate Defenders, asserted that "Citigroup's racist funding of oil, coal, and gas is creating climate chaos that's devastating communities of color across the country."
"We're taking action to tell Citi that we won't put up with their environmental racism for one more day," Westin continued. "Our communities have reached the boiling point. Our children have asthma, our city's sky was orange, and our air polluted because of the climate crisis caused by Citi and Wall Street."
"We're going to keep organizing and taking direct action until Citi listens to us," he vowed.
Stop the Money Pipeline co-director Alec Connon said: "To have any chance of reigning in the climate crisis, we must stop investing in fossil fuel expansion. Yet, Citibank is pumping billions of dollars into new coal, oil, and gas projects."
"We're here to make it clear: If they're going to fund the companies disrupting our climate and our lives, we're going to disrupt their business," Connon added.
Activists have repeatedly targeted Citigroup in recent years as the megabank has pumped more than $300 billion into fossil fuel investments around the world since the Paris climate agreement.
According to the protest organizers:
Citi has provided $668 million in funding to Formosa Plastics between 2001-2021, which is trying to build a $9.4 billion plastics facility in a majority Black community in the heart of Cancer Alley in Louisiana.
Citigroup is also one of the biggest funders of state-run oil and gas companies in the Amazon basin, pumping in over $40 billion between 2016-2020, and a major backer of Petroperú, which has been involved in oil spills and Indigenous rights violations.
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