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Wednesday, July 12th, 2023

The Right’s Desperate Push to Tank ESG and Avoid Disclosing Climate Risks

Author:     Amy Westervelt
Source:     The Intercept
Publication Date:     July 2 2023 | 6:00 a.m.
 Link: The Right’s Desperate Push to Tank ESG and Avoid Disclosing Climate Risks
Stephan:  

Given the news we see, hear, and read every day covering floods, droughts, historically high temperatures, and dying ecosystems, rationally it is hard to see why anyone would oppose good environmental governance and protect those who are damaging the earth’s ecology. And yet that is exactly what Republicans are doing. The Republican Party in the face of all the evidence telling them they are harming the world, continues to do so. Why? Because the party is owned by oligarchs and corporations who are involved with those climate damaging technologies and they don’t want to see their profits diminished. It is morally evil, but there you are.

To read the House Report upon which this article is based see: see:https://financialservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/hfsc_esg_working_group_memo_final.pdf

The sun sets at a wind farm in McCook, Texas, during a heat wave on July 20, 2022. Credit: Delcia Lopez / The Monitor / AP

The House of Representatives released the first report from its Environmental Social and Governance Steering Committee  Working Group in late June, highlighting priorities for the rest of the 118th Congress and making clear that Republicans won’t stop “investigating” environmental, social, and governance investing while there’s still a chance to save polluting companies from having to report their actual emissions.

At its core, ESG is about information: When companies report on their environmental, social, and governance risks, which can range from high greenhouse gas emissions to particular hiring practices, investors use that information to determine whether they think a company is a good investment.

The Republican-led House isn’t the only entity that’s become obsessed with ESG investing over the past two years. From political advocacy organizations like the Texas Public Policy Foundation to state treasurers, the American Legislative Exchange Council and the Republican Attorneys General Association, the right wing has been on fire about this […]

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