{"167475":{"id":"167475","parent":"0","time":"1579024500","url":"http:\/\/newsnet.fr\/167475","source":"http:\/\/www.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/qjdb4d\/blackrock-should-be-seized-for-crimes-against-the-earth","category":"documentaires","title":"Blackrock Should Be Seized for Crimes Against the Earth","catalog-images":"\/","image":"http:\/\/newsnet.fr\/img\/","hub":"newsnet","url-explicit":"http:\/\/newsnet.fr\/art\/blackrock-should-be-seized-for-crimes-against-the-earth","admin":"newsnet","views":"463","priority":"3","length":"5228","lang":"en","content":"\u003Cfigure\u003Ehttps:\/\/video-images.vice.com\/articles\/5e1df6cff6de580094bce3a4\/lede\/1579022720269-GettyImages-523220810.jpeg?crop=1xw:0.8574695121951219xh;center,center&resize=700:*\u003Cfigcaption\u003E\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/search\/photographer?family=editorial&photographer=Bloomberg\"\u003Egettyimages.com\u003C\/a\u003E \/ Contributor\u003C\/figcaption\u003E\u003C\/figure\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, announced Tuesday it would now consider sustainability and climate change when \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.blackrock.com\/corporate\/investor-relations\/larry-fink-ceo-letter\"\u003Emaking decisions with its nearly $7 trillion\u003C\/a\u003E in investments. This decision doesn't undo a legacy of environmental destruction and its announcement is full of half measures and caveats. We should be arresting BlackRock's executives, not lauding them.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThis comes after years of \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2019\/may\/21\/blackrock-investor-climate-crisis-blackrock-assets\"\u003Edragging its feet\u003C\/a\u003E on addressing its fossil fuel investments: BlackRock has not only \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/j5wdvg\/blackrock-profiting-from-climate-change\"\u003Eprofited\u003C\/a\u003E from being the largest investor in coal worldwide (companies and mines), but blocked attempts by its polluter investments to create meager emissions targets or even create \"scenario planning\" for climate change.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\"Awareness is rapidly changing, and I believe we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance,\" Laurence Fink, founder and CEO of BlackRock, wrote in the letter. \"The evidence on climate risk is compelling investors to reassess core assumptions about modern finance.\"\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhile this is a welcome development from Fink's position just \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.blackrock.com\/corporate\/investor-relations\/larry-fink-chairmans-letter\"\u003Elast year\u003C\/a\u003E (\"Our decisions are driven solely by our fiduciary duty to our clients\"), it doesn't erase decades of enabling and profiting from the companies that are destroying the Earth. And it's still a half measure: BlackRock says it will simply now assess climate-related risk from a financial perspective, and that it will be \"making sustainability integral to portfolio construction and risk management.\" In practice, BlackRock will still remain one of the world's largest investors in fossil fuel companies: \"We need to be mindful of the economic, scientific, social and political realities of the energy transition.\"\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhat will BlackRock do with the untold billions it has made from companies responsible for climate change? How aggressively will it pursue sustainable investments? What happens to medium sustainability-related risk investments? Will it invest in projects to repair the damage it has made a killing off of? What does divestment look like?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EFor years, protesters have asked \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/a358b4\/the-companies-that-invest-in-the-earths-destruction-must-be-held-accountable\"\u003Esimilar questions\u003C\/a\u003E because of BlackRock's commitment to profit at the expense of the Earth and its inhabitants. Its investments accelerate not only climate change but ecological decay and collapse: deforestation, air and water pollution, and declining biodiversity all have adverse effects on humans today and for generations to come. Is BlackRock's new investment strategy going to address the damage it has already wrought?\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EIt does not seem likely any of these questions will likely be addressed in any substantive way because, as Fink \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/01\/14\/business\/dealbook\/larry-fink-blackrock-climate-change.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur\"\u003Einsisted in an interview\u003C\/a\u003E with the \u003Ci\u003ENew York Times\u003C\/i\u003E, the decision was a business one: \"We are fiduciaries,\" Fink told \u003Ci\u003EThe Times\u003C\/i\u003E. \"Politics isn't part of this.\"\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe problem is that how we deal with climate change is inherently a political question. Climate change, \u003Ca href=\"http:\/\/nymag.com\/intelligencer\/2019\/12\/climate-change-worst-case-scenario-now-looks-unrealistic.html\"\u003Eeven in the best-case scenarios\u003C\/a\u003E, will be responsible for the deaths and displacement of hundreds of millions of people and an untold number of plants and animals.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBlackRock chose to make its investments decades after climate change and its effects were well known to scientists, chose to block attempts by its companies to reduce their role in emissions, and chose to preserve its investments for decades all in the name of profit.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBlackRock doesn't deserve praise for choosing an investment strategy that centers climate change, it deserves a trial for its role in these crimes against humanity and the Earth. This world is marred with scars inflicted by the business models championed by BlackRock for decades.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EReal divestment is not whatever BlackRock is doing, although its move is at least better than maintaining the status quo. Real divestment \u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/jacobinmag.com\/2019\/02\/fossil-fuels-climate-change-crimes-against-humanity\"\u003Ebegins with a trial\u003C\/a\u003E and continues forward with moves to takeover extractive companies, wind them down, provide for their workers, provide for the communities they've extracted labor and resources from, and make amends with the Earth.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\"https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/qjdb4d\/blackrock-should-be-seized-for-crimes-against-the-earth\"\u003Evice.com\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","_links":[]}}

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