A new report finds the Trump administration has added nearly $40 billion in federal subsidies for oil, gas, and coal in 2025 — locking in $4 billion more per year for the next decade, on top of existing support for fossil fuels.
Climate Damage Is Already an Economic Line Item—Just Not One We Recognize
By Ian Brusewitz and Valerie Gardner
Over just the past 12 months, the US has spent nearly $1 trillion on climate-related disaster recovery and infrastructure damage. That’s 3% of GDP — money that could have gone toward innovation, productivity, benefits, or debt reduction. Instead, it's being rerouted into extreme weather damage cleanup, reconstruction, and emergency response. According to Bloomberg Intelligence, this surge in climate-related spending has effectively become a "stealth tariff" on Americans: a hidden cost that shows up not as a line item, but in the form of higher prices, larger insurance premiums, and government spending that collectively erode household budgets and wealth without being labeled for what it is. The conversation around climate change often centers on long-term risk — but the reality is that US citizens are already paying an average of almost $3,000 annually towards covering the costs of our worsening climate, even if these costs are not specifically identified as such.
This economic burden isn’t theoretical — it’s already bleeding into the real economy in visible, destabilizing ways. Climate-related costs are no longer confined to isolated events or specific regions. Climate change is indifferent to boundaries, and its financial impacts are bleeding into housing markets, food systems, labor dynamics, consumer prices, and state and federal budgets. As these disruptions grow more frequent and severe, as last evidenced by the devastating fires in Los Angeles and deadly flash floods in Texas — no sector, geography, demographic, or business is immune. This suggests that as the capital allocations necessary for climate recovery grow, the environmental risks bleed increasingly into financial risks. Not only are our physical assets vulnerable, but so are our financial assets. This then raises the stakes of where and how to invest.
Insurance and Public Safety Nets Are Starting to Fray
As the economic footprint of climate disruption expands, the institutions we’ve historically relied on to manage risk are showing cracks. Insurance is becoming a visible point of failure in that equation. In 2024, Hurricane Helene hit Florida as the strongest storm ever recorded in the state’s Panhandle. Days later, Hurricane Milton followed. Combined, the two storms caused $113 billion in damage. Then came the devastating California wildfires in January 2025, burning through L.A. suburbs, which added another $65 billion to the total. The LA Times has since estimated total fire damage could exceed $250 billion, making it one of the costliest fire seasons in U.S. history. And, most recently, the devastating Texas floods — with damage estimated at upward of $22 billion — don't even account for the tragic loss of life from these events.
Historically, the federal government covered about one-third of climate-related disaster costs. That share has since dropped to around 2%, leaving municipalities and states to issue debt or delay recovery projects, and shifting more of the burden onto insurers and property owners. In 2023, insurers covered approximately 70% of the $114 billion in U.S. climate-related losses, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Because of rising costs, insurance premiums have doubled since 2017, including a 22% spike in 2023 alone. These increases aren’t reflected in the Consumer Price Index, which means that what we’re calling "inflation" may actually be something distinctly different. The question we can ask is whether or not people would make different choices if these embedded costs were more clearly labeled as a "Fossil Fuel Waste Damage Premium" or something similar. This lack of clarity and failure to accurately attribute these rising costs to what we think of as cheap fossil fuels means that we understate the full costs and consequences of our use of these fuels.
The "Tragedy of the Horizons" Issue
In 2015, former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney coined the phrase "Tragedy of the Horizons" to describe the problem that results from the fact that people want what's cheap for them today and are unwilling to pay more for something even if it is better for them or their children in the future. The same problem exists at every level in the investment world: financial actors operate on quarterly cycles, while climate impacts unfold over years or decades. This mismatch between how we invest today versus what we need for tomorrow means markets routinely discount the long-term consequences of inaction, prioritizing short-term returns over long-term stability, even when instability is well predicted. The result of this short-term orientation is a structural disconnect that undercuts our ability to invest in climate action and solutions, so as to limit the long-term damage we will inevitably have to pay for, before it gets really bad.
A decade later, this structural blind spot surrounding investing in climate solutions persists. At a recent Financial Stability Board meeting, a U.S. Treasury official dismissed climate concerns unless they posed an "imminent" financial risk. But that logic depends upon people not recognizing the growing annual Fossil Fuel Waste Damage Premium that they are already paying. In addition to revealing an utter failure to understand the real-world progression of climate impacts and looming tipping points, which are beyond "imminent," they are being expressed with disasters everywhere, even if these costs are economically masked and not clearly identified as climate costs. This disconnect is one of the clearest reasons capital hasn’t shifted meaningfully towards investing in the technologies that can enable the energy transition to the extent that we should. So long as people don't realize how expensive climate inaction actually is, human nature tragically rewards inertia, which means that both the damage done in the interim and the costs of solving climate change will continue to rise.
We’re Still Underestimating the Real Costs
Surveys from Yale’s Climate Change in the American Mind series show rising concern among Americans about climate change. Yet, far fewer people connect climate change directly to the rising costs of food, insurance, consumer products, or energy prices. This perception gap matters. When the public doesn’t see their rising costs as climate-driven, there’s less support for regional climate mitigation efforts, long-term adaptation investments, or even innovative clean energy investments that can help accelerate the energy transition, reduce the impacts of future extreme weather events, a hedge the rising climate risks to their overall portfolio.
While consumer awareness lags, markets have begun to price in climate risks. Bloomberg tracks a basket of 100 companies in insurance, infrastructure, and disaster response that have outperformed the S&P 500 by 7% annually. Capital is adapting faster than federal policy — and faster than public awareness. This divergence captures a core tension. While markets have begun reallocating capital toward climate adaptation — outpacing both federal policy and public awareness — the broader system still treats climate disruption as a distant risk, even though the costs are already embedded in household budgets increasingly squeezed by insurance premiums, rising costs, and disaster recovery bills not covered by insurance or the government. Climate impacts and costs are no longer theoretical or negligible. They are already large, compounding, and for many households, causing significant budgetary pain. And yet, despite the mounting data, policy and public sentiment lag. Yet, there is very little recognition of how these climate costs are escalating or communication to the public about the real price of our government's climate ignorance and inaction.
A Smarter Way Forward
The trillion-dollar annual cost of climate inaction isn’t a projection — it’s already here. It reflects not just extreme weather, but the fallout from underbuilt systems and delayed clean energy investment. We haven’t invested adequately in low-carbon technologies that can reduce and eliminate carbon emissions at scale and possibly even begin to repair the damage that has already been done to the climate. Investments lagged because investors doubted the need for these technologies as well as their commercial viability. Clean energy technologies that were seen as more expensive than fossil fuels were deemed less competitive in today's market and hence, not a good investment. But if we begin to factor in today's Fossil Fuel Waste Damage Premium plus the growing costs of not having those technologies — namely the ever-escalating costs of climate damage — then these clean energy solutions really start to seem attractive.
This is where next-generation nuclear becomes decisively appealing. Not only does it deliver clean, dense, reliable, and dispatchable power — but it generates power (and so earns money) without relying on the weather or being vulnerable to it, which is a growing risk to renewables projects reliant on the weather cooperating. As both a hedge against the systemic economic risks of climate disruption and as a source of long-term returns and near-term risk reduction, nuclear power offers a uniquely strategic return. If the Fossil Fuel Waste Damage Premium is now a recurring cost, the only rational move is to invest in the most scalable solutions that cut exposure to climate risk, preserve economic value, and secure a livable future.
References:
Bloomberg, “US Spending on Climate Damage Nears $1 Trillion Per Year,” by Eric Roston, June 17, 2025.
Bloomberg, “Carney’s Risk Warning Reverberates as Global Regulators Disagree Over Climate,” by Alastair Marsh, June 19, 2025.
Congressional Budget Office, “Federal Insurance and Disaster Spending”, September 2023.
Los Angeles Times, “Estimated Cost of Fire Damage Balloons to More Than $250 Billion”, by Sammy Roth, January 24, 2025.
MSN, “Texas Flood Damage to Homes May Cost Up to $22B”, by Michael Walrath, May 2025.
Nature, “Warming Accelerates Global Drought Severity,” by Solomon H. Gebrechorkos et al., June 4, 2025.
NOAA, “Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters”, 2024 Report.
Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, “Climate Change in the American Mind: Beliefs & Attitudes”, Fall 2024.
Bloomberg reports that the US has spent nearly $1 trillion on damage recovery related to climate change for the 12 months ending May 1, 2025.
Climate tipping effects may be kicking in
For those tracking the state of the climate, the report published by the BBC showing that tropical forests were being destroyed at the fastest recorded rate over the last year, was frightening, with the prospect of total forest dieback and "savannisation" of these areas is a growing risk.
Compounding the loss of old-growth tropical forests in 2024 (estimated to have covered an area as large as Ireland) and the release of their carbon stores, is the loss of the moisture and climate systems maintained by those forest ecosystems, which previously provided localized cooling effects, produced cloud cover and contributed to the atmospheric moisture necessary for rain. These had also helped to brighten the earth, thereby reflecting more of the sunlight that otherwise would cause heating. This moisture and water cycle activity gets destroyed along with the trees, plants and animal life. This climatic loss to broad areas may be having more of a negative feedback effective on the planet's overall warming than has previously been recognized.
Global Surface Temperature Change (published 2/3/25)
This news add yet more data to the alarming report published in February by Dr. James Hansen, Dr. Pushker Kharecha and a team of sixteen other climate scientists plainly titled "Global Warming Has Accelerated: Are the United Nations and the Public Well-Informed? In it, Dr. Hansen's team explains that global temperatures have leaped up more than a half degree (0.7°F or 0.4°C) over the last 2 years, with a total average temperature rise of +1.6°C relative to the temperature at the beginning of last century (the 1880-1920 average). This reflects a temperature rise over the +1.5°C (or 2.7°F) level that we set as our goal for maximum increase. As of the last year, we've already exceeded that level.
These increases have, according to Hansen, baffled Earth scientists, as the increase's magnitude was literally off the charts. There were multiple explanations presented as to what could have caused such a big increase. Declining aerosol pollution was seen as a key contributor, by reducing nuclei that aided cloud formation and thus reflection of sunlight, thereby effectively darkening earth and allowing more heat to be absorbed. These are very troubling and portentious changes that may, in fact, show that feedback effects are already accelerating the heating impacts of our CO2 emissions, such that they no longer follow a direct relationship.
Dr. Hansen's report received considerable criticism both because it departed scientifically from the mainstream's more conservative consensus of a lower rate of warming and climate "sensitivity," as determined by the IPCC, and because it called for "a complement to the IPCC approach" to "avoid handing young people a dire situation that is out of their control." In a response to some of that criticism, Drs. Hansen and Karecha decried the ad hoc opinions, ad hominem attacks and sense that the media has gravitated towards reporting the opinions of just a small handful of scientists, rather than covering the total community and range of analyses, including their own.
Dr. Anatassia Makarieva, an atmospheric physicist, responded to this debate with a substack post titled "On the scientific essense of Dr. James Hansen's recent appeal." In it she agreed with Drs. Hansen and Karecha that many scientists were understating the degree of climate forcing but also shared her sense that many of the climate models in use, including Dr. Hansen's, erroneously ignored the major role of the biosphere in the climate destabilization that we are now experiencing. Which may, she argued, partially explain why none of the models predicted the heat anomaly of the 2023 - 2024 time period. Dr. Makarieva writes:
Why is this [i.e. accurate climate models] so important? Unless external causes of this recent temperature anomaly are identified, we may be dealing with a self-reinforcing process — for example, of reduced cloud cover causing more warming, this warming causing even less clouds and so forth until something truly ugly happens to our planet. But, if so, such a process could be started by many factors and does not necessarily need CO2 to kick off. For example, deforestation-induced reduction of evapotranspiration in the Amazon is associated with extreme heat events. This alone could trigger the warming that could then self-amplify via cloud (or some other) feedbacks.
Whether or not we have permanent self-reinforcing amplification happening with the climate now is being debated, partially thanks to new voices like Dr. Makarieva's, entering the field. What is clear, however, is that the fewer clouds, aerosols, snow cover, sea ice and also more invisible sources of water vapor (such produced by tropical forests and other natural ecosystems) the darker the earth is and the more sunlight gets through and heats the ground, the oceans and the air. This heating further impacts existing vegetation, ice sheets, permafrost and bodies of water negatively, which then also contribute more CO2, more fires, and further darkening of earth's surface. Earth's climate has been in a state of equilibrium for eons. Given what is happening with the climate now, it appears that it is leaving that state of equilibrium.
Dr. Hansen continues to urge immediate action and has proposed that "a multitude of actions are required within less than a decade to reduce and even reverse Earth’s energy imbalance for the sake of minimizing the enormous ongoing geoengineering of the planet; specifically, we will need to cool the planet to avoid consequences for young people that all people would find unconscionable."
References:
BBC, Tropical forests destroyed at fastest recorded rate last year, by Mark Poynting and Esme Stallard, May 20, 2025.
Columbia University, Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions, "Global Warming Has Accelerated: Are the United Nations and the Public Well-Informed?, published in Taylor & Francis, February 3, 2025 by James E. Hansen, Pushker Kharecha, Makiko Sato, George Tselioudis, Joseph Kelly, Susanne E. Bauer, Reto Ruedy, Eunbi Jeong, Qinjian Jin, Eric Rignot, Isabella Velicogna, Mark R. Schoeberl, Karina von Schuckmann, Joshua Amponsem, Junji Cao, Anton Keskinen, Jing Li, and Anni Pokela
Biotic Regulation and Biotic Pump Substack, "On the scientific essense of Dr. James Hansen's recent appeal." by Dr. Anatassia Makarieva, an atmospheric physicist, May 19, 2025.
IEA's Global Methane Tracker 2025: Methane emissions have been vastly under-reported
As more measured data has become available, it appears that most national inventories are underreporting emissions: our estimate of total energy-related methane emissions globally is about 80% higher than the total reported by countries to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This gap is narrowest in Europe, where countries regularly submit inventories and some producers report emissions based on measured data.
Global temperature leaped more than 0.4°C (0.7°F) during the past two years, the 12-month average peaking in August 2024 at +1.6°C relative to the temperature at the beginning of last century (the 1880-1920 average). Polar climate change has the greatest long-term effect on humanity, with impacts accelerated by the jump in global temperature. We find that polar ice melt and freshwater injection onto the North Atlantic Ocean exceed prior estimates and, because of accelerated global warming, the melt will increase. As a result, shutdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is likely within the next 20-30 years, unless actions are taken to reduce global warming – in contradiction to conclusions of IPCC. If AMOC is allowed to shut down, it will lock in major problems including sea level rise of several meters – thus, we describe AMOC shutdown as the “point of no return.”
By Valerie Gardner, Nucleation Capital Managing Partner
Presidential elections are always important and this year's election is widely considered particularly critical and unusual. There are vast differences of opinion on matters of great national importance—from voting rights and health policies to international relations and national security policies. Less well litigated is where these candidates stand on matters of energy security, the energy transition and future deployments of both traditional and advanced nuclear power. How will the differences in character, knowledge and respect for facts, science and experts play out on U.S. policies towards nuclear power? Based upon various sources, it appears that the election will have a significant impact. For those still making up their minds, this summary assessment may help clarify how numerous pundits view these differences.
Summary
Nuclear energy has enjoyed enduring bipartisan support across both Democratic and Republican administrations for years now. The Congress has passed, with overwhelming bipartisan majorities, bills aimed at modernizing and accelerating commercialization of new nuclear.
Nevertheless, in 2024, the two presidential candidates bring potentially unconventional approaches that may differ from the standard positions of their respective parties. Republicans have long valued America's nuclear capacity and have seen the need for the US to maintain leadership to boost both national security and to expand our ability to export our technologies. They recognize that the U.S. needs to counter the geopolitical influence of adversaries like Russia and China which are offering to help developing nations with nuclear power as a means of increasing their influence within those countries.
Democrats have also, if more recently, come around to support nuclear. Both the Obama White House and the Biden Administration have provided broad support for the industry and particularly for the acceleration of next-generation nuclear technologies and American leadership in the energy transition. Front and center of their support is the recognition that nuclear power is a critical, differentiated component of a reliable, 24/7 low-carbon energy grid. They support its expansion primarily as a mechanism to meet growing energy needs and fortify grid reliability while reducing carbon emissions and addressing climate change, in tandem with renewables.
The question then of which candidate is more likely to support the continued acceleration of nuclear power is thus wrapped up with policies relating to energy security, fossil fuels, geopolitical competition with Russia and China, and support for addressing climate change. The Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022 and signed by President Biden marked the Congress' single largest investment in the economy, energy security and climate change and is widely seen as the most important piece of climate legislation ever passed. It simultaneously rebuilds the U.S. industrial capabilities while incentivizing the growth of clean energy technologies including domestic nuclear power. It is already making an enormous and beneficial impact on the U.S. nuclear indsutry.
Kamala Harris, while possibly more progressive than Biden, has shown her support for Biden's approach to incentivizing the clean energy transition through the IRA, Biden's signature piece of climate legislation, which has received staunch support from industry. She is unlikely to make many if any changes to the IRA's clean energy technology-neutral Investment Tax Credits and Production Tax Credits or reduce the billions in loan guarantees available through the Loan Program Office, which have already stimulated significant investment in protecting and restarting existing reactors.
Because of Biden’s Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act’s Civil Nuclear Credit program, California is proceeding with the relicensing of Diablo Canyon, Holtec has chosen to restart, rather than decommission, Michigan’s Palisades nuclear power plant, Constellation has inked a deal with Microsoft to restart Three Mile Island Unit 2, and NextEra Energy is actively considering the restart of Duane Arnold. Meanwhile, Google has signed a deal to buy power from advanced nuclear reactors being designed by Kairos Power and Amazon has signed a similar deal with X-energy, marking the first corporate purchases of next-generation nuclear, thanks to highly motivating tax and financing incentives available through the IRA and LPO.
Harris is clearly committed to addressing climate change. There is no evidence that she rejects the clean energy tech-agnostic approach developed during her term as Vice President, which levels the playing field for nuclear energy as a clean energy source. Harris recognizes the geopolitical importance of America's ability to compete with Russia to produce our own nuclear fuel supply and to provide nuclear technologies to developing nations seeking to build their clean energy capacity but wanting to remain free of Russian or Chinese influence.
In contrast, Donald Trump has repeatedly called climate change a "hoax," and/or a good thing and cares little about reducing U.S. or global emissions. He previously walked away from the Paris accord and would likely try to repeal, roll back or dilute the IRA. He's publicly allied himself with the fossil fuel industry and—in exchange for donations—has promised to roll back EPA regulations and help them "drill, drill, drill."
There is almost no doubt that Trump would step the U.S. away from its leadership role on climate and this time, that may mean reversing the U.S.'s pledge to triple the amount of nuclear power. This would seriously undermine both the U.S. nuclear industry's momentum to expand to meet growing demand as well as international progress. Given Trump’s overt courting of Putin, he may be disinclined to rebuild the U.S.'s nuclear fuel production capacity or seek to accelerate or support American efforts to build nuclear projects internationally in competition with Russia.
None of this would be good for nuclear power. Any potential efforts to rollback the IRA would slow restoration, development and deployment of reactors. Boosting the fossil fuel industry, whether through supporting expanded access to federal land or price manipulation to improve profitability would have severe impacts on the energy transition. Trump's recent acknowledgement that he didn't believe nuclear was safe also belies the stated "commitment" to nuclear energy expressed by his surrogates and gives considerable fodder to those who persist in opposing nuclear. His shoot-from-the-hip, truth-be-damned leadership style and embrace of conspiracy theorists, contrasts starkly with Harris' stated willingness to consult with scientific experts and even give those who disagree with her a seat at the table.
In sumary, Trump's likely propensity to undermine the IRA, oppose climate action and backtrack on US pledges to triple nuclear, his support for expanding fossil fuel production and his continued disdain for science and technical experts, poses extreme risks to the momentum generated within the nuclear sector over the last few years. Trump's ignorance of nuclear energy's exceptional safety performance make him unlikely to provide Oval Office leadership either to the industry or the NRC in support of the bipartisan ADVANCE Act, signed into law by Biden.
In contrast, a Harris Administration would likely remain on the current climate glideslope for leadership, technology-neutral funding and the U.S.'s nuclear tripling momentum as stimulated by the Biden Administration. It may be that a Harris Administration does not prioritize nuclear's growth or add billions in new accelerants as Biden has done, but she will not try to trash it. Having been briefed by senior energy advisors over the last four years about the importance of nuclear, she is well-informed and understands the importance of Biden's initiatives for addressing climate.
Based on this analysis, those who support an expansion of nuclear power and enduring progress towards transitioning away from fossil fuels should thus prefer to see Harris elected, rather than Trump, and the existing policies continued.
Sources
You can find more detailed information about the basis for this Summary Assessment from these sources.
- Forbes, Trump Plans To Rescind Funds For IRA Law’s Climate Provisions, But May Keep Drug Price Measures, by Joshua P. Cohen, Sept. 9, 2024.
- Bloomberg, US Economy Will Suffer If IRA Repealed, Solar Maker CEO Says, by Mark Chediak, Oct. 22, 2024.
- Politico E&E News, Trump cites cost and risks of building more nuclear plants, by Nico Portuondo, Francisco "A.J." Camacho, Oct. 29, 2024.
- Huffington Post, Donald Trump Takes A Skeptical View Of Nuclear Energy On Joe Rogan’s Podcast, by Alexander Kaufman, Oct. 27, 2024
- Bloomberg, Trump 2.0 Climate Tipping Points: A guide to what a second Trump White House can—and can't—do to the American effort to slow global warming, by Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Sept. 30, 2024.
- Joint Economic Committee, How Project 2025's Health, Education, and Climate Policies Hurt Americans, August 2024.
- FactCheck.org, Trump Clings to Inaccurate Climate Change Talking Points, Jessica McDonald, Sept. 9, 2024.
- New York Times, Trump Will Withdraw U.S. From Paris Climate Agreement, Michael D. Shear, June 1, 2017
- Cipher: Here's how cleantech stacks up in three swing states: Taking stock of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Sept. 3, 2024.
- Bloomberg Green, Climate Politics: Double-Punch Storms Thrust Climate Into the US Presidential Race, by Zahra Hirji, Oct. 11, 2024.
- New York Times, Biden’s Climate Plans Are Stunted After Dejected Experts Fled Trump, by Coral DavenportLisa Friedman and Christopher Flavelle, published Aug. 1, 2021, updated Sept. 20, 2021
- Bloomberg, The Donald Trump Interview Transcript (with quote "Green New Scam"), July 16, 2024.
- Google: New nuclear clean energy agreement with Kairos Power, by Michael Terrell, Oct. 15, 2024, and Google's The Corporate Role in Accelerating Advanced Clean Electricity Technologies, Sept. 2023.
- The New Republic, Trump Pushes Deranged Idea that Climate Change is Good for Real Estate, by Robert McCoy, Sept. 18, 2024.
- Grid Brief: What Was Said About Energy During the VP Debate, JD Vance and Tim Walz Discuss Energy and Climate During VP Debate, by Jeff Luse, Oct. 2, 2024.
- CNN: Fact check: Sea levels are already rising faster per year than Trump claims they might rise over "next 497 years', by Daniel Dale, June 29, 2024.
- CNN: Fact check: Tramp's latest false climate figure is off by more than 1,000 times, by Daniel Dale, April 2023.
- Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, YPCCC's Resources on Climate in the 2024 U.S. General Election, by Anthony Leiserowitz, Edward Maibach, Jennifer Carman, Jennifer Marlon, John Kotcher, Seth Rosenthal and Joshua Low, Oct. 8, 2024.
- SIGNED: Bipartisan ADVANCE Act to Boost Nuclear Energy Now Law, Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works, July 9, 2024.
- Rodgers, Pallone, Carper, Capito Celebrate Signing of Bipartisan Nuclear Energy Bill, the ADVANCE Act, July 9, 2024.
- The White House, Bill Signed S. 870, July 9, 2024.
- Power Magazine, The ADVANCE Act—Legislation Crucial for a U.S. Nuclear Renaissance—Clears Congress. Here's a Detailed Breakdown by Sonal Patel, June 20, 2024
- Sidley Austin LLP, Congress Passes ADVANCE Act to Facilitate U.S. Development of Advanced Nuclear Reactors, June 26, 2024.
David Gelles bravely titles his Climate Forward article in the New York Times, "Scientists are Freaking Our About Ocean Temperatures." It would have been every bit as accurate, but possibly less acceptable, if he had said scientists are freaking out about climate change or global warming rather than "ocean temperatures." But, since much of the warming that we're causing is being absorbed by the oceans, ocean temperatures are a proxy for global warming. They took a gob-smacking leap up this year, shifting the historic pattern of more gradual increases.
This astonishing leap follows a record hot January and one of the longest runs of record-breaking summer temperatures the world has ever seen (shown in the above chart in pale orange). As a function of this, ocean temperatures are now in unknown territory, as shown by the red line in the graph above, reflecting readings for 2024.
Scientists have hypotheses as to what might have caused such a dramatic shift. To understand some of what the world's top scientists are thinking, we recommend you read "Global warming in the pipeline," by James E. Hansen, Makiko Sato, Leon Simons and other scientists, published in September 2023 by Oxford University Press, if you are capable of following deeply scientific, dense analysis. Alternatively, Dr. Hansen and his CSAS team sent a thank you memo to supporters in February, with something of a summary of the conclusion from the Pipeline paper. You can read this entire memo here, but we quote the following paragraph:
In Pipeline, among other things, we show that climate sensitivity is higher than IPCC’s best estimate and human-made aerosols are a larger climate forcing that is driving global warming acceleration. A stunning global change now underway is darkening of Earth (Fig. 1). Earth’s albedo (reflectivity) decreased since 2015 by an amount that has an effect on global temperature equivalent to a CO2 increase of more than 100 ppm. This darkening has doubled Earth’s energy imbalance and thrown into a cocked hat official claims about achieving climate targets. These facts make it more difficult, but not impossible, to secure a propitious climate for future generations.
Gelles also tries to answer the question of what's driving the heat. He writes: "Global warming, caused by the burning of fossil fuels, has been driving up global temperatures on land and in the sea for decades now. Over the past year, worldwide average temperatures were more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, higher than before the industrial age. New data from a variety of sources has led some climate scientists to suggest that global warming is accelerating." And since oceans absorb most of the added heat near the earth's surface, they have been steadily warming for years. Even so, data collected in the past year has been shocking to those who have been following the trends. It's pretty much "off the charts."
[Aside: The above graphic provides a powerful visualization of the acceleration of warming that is now happening. We appreciate that this news can be deeply disturbing on many levels, including because we've long been led to believe that it would take a lot longer for the severe heating effects of climate change to be felt. That may no longer be true, although clearly scientists don't fully know how all of the climate feedback loops work. We are deeply worried that we will see a year in which these super warm oceans turbo-charge the already record-breaking hurricane seasons that we've seen coming from the Atlantic in recent years. We post this information, so more people can realize just what unprecedented territory we are in. End Aside.]
THINGS YOU CAN DO
Should you be motivated to do more than you've done before to tackle climate, here's our list:
- Review this listing of pronuclear nonprofits, influencers, artists and experts and support efforts to spread the word about the benefits of nuclear power.
- Review Bank of America's analysts' report, "The Nuclear Necessity," to get ideas on public market investment options.
- For managed fund offerings, we think Parnassus Investments represents the best of the ESG-focused sustainability public fund options we've seen.
- Lastly, Nucleation offers a low-cost venture capital fund option, which, while higher risk, is one of the most impactful ways to help accelerate the commercialization of innovative solutions. We are clearly biased but, as Vinod Khosla has remarked about venture investing, “You only lose 1x your money if you fail, but if you succeed, you can make 100x.”
Read more at New York Times, "Scientists Are Freaking Out About Ocean Temperatures: "It's like an omen of the future," by David Gelles, Feb. 27, 2024.
By Valerie Gardner, Managing Partner
ESG investing is the largest and most profound global trend happening in the capital markets. Its popularity points to the global recognition that investors should and do have an important role to play in helping to solve environmental, social and other issues that have put the planet on a bad trajectory. In fact, no business can survive without investor support so businesses do care to meet investors' demands. Yet, as structured, ESG is not working to fulfill investors' true underlying needs or produce measurable objectives. The good news: there is an easy fix, when we start with "C," assessing climate impacts.
Like many things today, an initiative based upon a meaningful and important purpose, has become mired in controversy. Like the Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) movement that preceded it, ESG (an acronym for rating and selecting companies based upon their environmental, social and governance performance) has emerged to enable investors to focus their investments on companies that are taking care to behave more morally and responsibly vis-a-vis the environment, their employees, their shareholders, their suppliers, their communities and the climate. Many of these types of good corporate behaviors previously went unreported. What's become clear to investors is that short-term profiteering by managers may appear to be beneficial for shareholders but often may not be. It can conflict with what we know are looming issues which need action. Thus, sometimes taking a longer-term view and making corresponding sacrifices or investments that actually reduce overall risks can vastly improve longer-term enterprise value.
ESG has emerged to identify, elevate and reward companies which invest in doing what is right, even if such actions reduce returns in the short-term. It is intended to broaden the metrics on which corporations report information, so investors can make better informed decisions and invest in companies taking ethical actions, treating employees, suppliers and their communities fairly and protecting the environment—much of which costs more but which can reduce risks and other future costs, including litigation, public opposition or climate impacts.
While collecting data to make this type of assessment might seem uncontroversial, traditionally company management was required to focus on meeting only one goal: maximizing shareholder value. Because actions that affect long term enterprise value are often difficult to quantify, management reports have traditionally focused on easier t omeasure financial metrics like Price/Earnings ratios and quarterly profit trends. Deviating from the objective of maximizing per share profits could and often did result in shareholder lawsuits, if management took even smart and common sense approaches which reflected a community value, but which did not clearly improve shareholder value.
Fortunately, in 2019, under the leadership of Jamie Dimon, the Business Roundtable officially changed their statement of purpose and so businesses now broadly recognize that they are also accountable to their employees, suppliers and communities — constituents whose needs and actions can also impact the bottom line — but there is no consensus as to exactly how much or how little is enough and companies employ widely diverging approaches. ESG is now a way that investors can better discern the differences and reward companies that are acting responsibly on environmental, social and governance issues. Unfortunately, it is not working very well.
What ESG Currently Is
The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance published an article entitled ESG Ratings: A Compass without Direction which aptly summarizes the main issues with ESG as it currently is. The authors describe their findings as follows: "We find that while ESG ratings providers may convey important insights into the nonfinancial impact of companies, significant shortcomings exist in their objectives, methodologies, and incentives which detract from the informativeness of their assessments."
Critically, there's a significant dichotomy between what people commonly think ESG is supposed to indicate and what it actually indicates. Most people believe that an ESG score reflects a company's positive impact on the environment and stakeholders beyond its shareholders, such as employees, customers, suppliers, and local communities as well as the environment—a type of "Doing Good" metric which would tend to produce more shareholder value in the long run. In actuality, most ESG raters are assessing a company for the existence or absence of risk factors that could impact the future value of the company, such as the risk of discrimination in hiring or the risk of climate change on the supply chain. This is more of a "Risk Reduction" approach to data collection.
From an investment manager point of view, any time you can get meaningful information about a company's actions and potential future value, you are generally willing to pay for that—especially when your clients are clamoring for more sustainable investment options and are willing to pay more. Thus, there are now a plethora of third-party ESG rating services working to provide ESG data for a fee and a very large majority of impact-focused investment professionals are using these services to provide more options for clients. But, sadly, the entire space, which is still in its infancy, is chaotic and incoherent.
Studies show very low correlations across ESG ratings providers in total scores as well as across the three distinct components of "E," "S," and "G." Not only isn't there agreement about what an ESG score reflects, there is no standardization in the types of data collected or used and no consistency to the methodologies of collecting, assessing or prioritizing within or across categories. Thus, not only are ESG ratings badly correlated with environmental and social outcomes, the relationship between ESG ratings and financial performance is also uncertain. Those investing in ESG-type funds will typically pay more in fees for having accessed ESG data but they will generally get just equivalent or worse performance.
High and rising demand for ESG information has caused ESG-type rating services and funds to become profit centers, even as the quality, consistency and efficacy of the ratings has failed to provide meaningful results. At the moment, in addition to all of the inherent confusion as to what data matters, how to collect it, how to assess it and then how combine it with many other data points into a meaningful score, there is also the problem of greenwashing. Greenwashing is the deliberate efforts by some companies to game the system and try to obtain better ratings and scores than they probably deserve.
Which points to a growing problem in the ESG space. Companies control what data they will share with which rating groups, creating an inherent ability for companies to influence their scores by refusing to give their data to groups that don't rate them highly. This has rendered the existing ESG industry scores almost meaningless, since many of these raters are dependent upon the good will with the companies they are rating to get the data they need.
There is no better example how badly ESG is doing for guiding investors to more ethical and sustainable companies than when the S&P Sustainability Index did its rebalancing in May 2022. At that juncture, the S&P ESG team ejected Tesla (the largest EV car maker and one of the most successful climate companies on the planet) from the Index but welcomed ExxonMobil (a renowned climate villain), prompting Elon Musk to call the S&P Sustainability Index a "scam."
This decision caused a broader uproar within the sector and forced Senior Director and Head of ESG Indices Margaret Dorn to publish an explanation. Not only was this shift a climate and ESG travesty but, in fact, the S&P's "delicate balancing act" revealed that ESG raters and ratings are meaningless for a whole host of reasons, predominantly because there is just too much data, too much manipulation, and not enough understanding of what really matters. ESG raters appear to be so lost in the trees, they have effectively lost sight of the forest, namely the critical issue that matters the most to investors: climate change.
What ESG Isn't
Investors are looking to ESG ratings to enable them to invest in companies that are doing better on a wide range of areas but, most critically, are environmentally responsible, especially around reducing carbon emissions. For many, this means working to provide solutions along the lines outlined by the United Nationa's Sustainable Development Goals. ESG investors care to invest in companies which improve global sustainability and solve climate change.
There are plenty of dire human, environmental and governance problems—you could name dozens—but none that threaten to seriously and even permanently disrupt the planet, human society and economic order as much climate change, the forced heating of our climate caused by burning fossil fuels. This crisis dwarfs everything.
So, while it may be troubling that there are reports of a toxic "bro" culture at Tesla, every single day, Tesla ships electric vehicles that enable people to stop purchasing and burning fossil fuels, which is the primary driver of climate change. In stark contrast, every single day ExxonMobil strives to greenwash their aspiration to keep selling more and more fossil fuels for as long as they possibly can—threatening not just human survival but that of all species and potentially our well-functioning societies, which could effectively wipe out the concept of wealth as we know it.
Shockingly, ESG as it is currently designed doesn't enable either the experts or investors to clearly assess companies on the single most important metric of sustainable performance—whether the company contributes to climate change or if they provide solutions to climate change. The average ESG investor, however, thinks that this is primarily what ESG does. Clearly, if ExxonMobil is rated highly but Tesla is not, ESG is not just meaningless, it is actually misleading for the average impact investor.
Fortunately, in order to fix this problem, ESG doesn't need to change that much, it just needs to make a small, relatively easy modification, which will then substantially improve its effectiveness and performance and begin to have a truly beneficial impact on humanity's ability to invest "sustainability." I propose a very basic approach for doing that below.
ESG Can Easily Be Fixed: Start all ratings with a "C" assessment
(Click to enlarge.)
As those concerned about what's happening with our climate saw, 2023 experienced a succession of seven record-shattering and "gobsmackingly bananas" (in the words of two climate scientists) hottest months on record. Not surprisingly, 2023 was also a record-breaker for climate disasters in the U.S. and around the globe, which have cost humanity billions annually. The bill for extreme climate disasters in the U.S. since 1980 now totals over $2 trillion and growing. Hundreds of millions of people are already being affected and/or displaced by the extreme weather events resulting from burning fossil fuels and allowing the CO2 pollution to escape into the atmosphere. These climate events are impacting the global economy, national security, geopolitics, businesses and politics in a range of ways but especially by increasing over systems risk.
(Click to enlarge)
Not surprisingly, at COP 28 in December, 198 nations gathered in the United Arab Emirates and finally agreed that we need to "transition away from fossil fuels." Though fossil fuel exporting nations like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iraq fought hard against adopting the specific words "phasing out fossil fuels," this is a pointless distinction, since it is abundantly clear that humanity needs to stop using fossil fuels as fast as humanly possible, whether transitioned or phased out. The climate is so bad, even Middle Eastern countries, whose primary source of revenue is fossil fuels, finally acknowledged what we've known for a very long time: only by eliminating the use of fossil fuels will we start to turn the tide against our worsening climate change and the dire ecologic and economic crisis that it threatens.
Against this backdrop and in light of the fact that ESG analyses and ratings are clearly still in "beta," we believe that ESG raters could make a very minor modification and start to have a much more significant impact. Simply by commencing vetting with one very simple sorting action, they would improve the coherence of ESG ratings by a lot. Prior to applying the rankings from hundreds of data points amassed regarding a plethora of corporate actions, ESG needs to divvy up the universe of companies into three distinct buckets: Climate Villains, Climate Neutral companies and Climate Heroes. This is a very easy distinction to make. Climate villains are those that are actively extracting, refining or selling virgin fossil fuel products or related services. Climate neutral companies are those that doing other business and are merely energy customers. Climate heroes are those companies which are actively developing and/or delivering key solutions to climate change (unrelated to ongoing fossil fuels operations), like low-carbon and carbon-free energy such as nuclear power, hydropower, wind, solar, geothermal and wave power; providing electrification support, such as with electric vehicles, heat pumps, charging stations and energy efficiency; and lastly carbon management, including carbon capture, carbon utilization and carbon sequestration (so long as unrelated to fossil fuel operations).
Once this vetting process has been done, then all of the current ESG metrics can then be assessed for more comparative performance relative to a company's other environmental, social and governance risks. But the top line assessment will easily enable every ESG-rated fund to exclude all Climate Villains. ESG funds will then be able to select their choices of best-performing companies from the other two categories for a mix of risk and return characteristics and use whatever type of analyses they wish. Investors will then have a very clear sense of what the composition of the fund is, across these three categories. Companies whose business is actively extracting, refining, distributing or selling fossil fuel products or services that cause climate change will likely still be included in standard, non-ESG funds, of course, but even these funds would easily be assessed for their climate impacts. Such funds could also be assessed for their ESG conformance, relative to other similar funds. But with this big bucket approach, no company or fund would be able to manipulate their "S" or "G" ratings in such a way as to feign that they are environmentally sustainable or acting responsibly relative to climate risk or sustainable development goals, when they are not, which is what impact investors mostly care about.
Summary
Despite inconsistencies in and controversy over ESG, we believe that demand for ESG research and investment vehicles remains strong largely because of concerns about climate change. Investors demand greater clarity about which businesses have more sustainable and ethical business approaches and want to own those and not companies shirking their responsibilities to future generations. Although ESG is in a nascent and chaotic state and not currently delivering the data ESG investors really need, a simple modification will be enough to ensure that more investor capital is directed into sustainable ventures.
Here's how we think it can work.
Prior to running the current slate of ESG assessments, each company should be given a climate score: "C Minus" is given to "Climate Villains," companies whose products and services are contributing to climate change, namely the fossil fuel extraction, refinement, distribution and sales companies that are responsible for contributing millions of tons of carbon emissions. Companies that not involved with climate-impacting businesses (such as those in healthcare, education, textiles, manufacturing, etc.) would be deemed "Climate Neutral" and get a straight "C" since their business is not directly causing climate change other than through their energy usages (or idiosyncratic emissions). Lastly, the final category are the Climate Heroes who get rated "C+" as they are actively working to solve humanity's need for clean energy and/or carbon services, which seek to restore the natural carbon balance in the atmosphere.
Once these very broad but clear buckets are determined, ESG ratings can be applied to provide more nuanced distinctions between the companies in each of the three buckets, based upon their treatment of employees, governance policies, whether or not they take care of their toxic emissions or waste products, whether they protect water sheds or try to use clean energy for their operations, etc. In this way, Tesla will be in the C+ bucket with other climate heroes and rated in comparison to other electric car companies but will never be in the same climate bucket as disgraced Climate Villain, ExxonMobil, which must try to out-maneuver other fossil fuels purveyors stuck in the C- bucket.
If this simple change were implemented, ESG funds could showcase their percentage of holdings that are C+ versus C, and ESG would finally become a highly effective tool for enabling investors to invest towards increasing the sustainability of our planet.
References
Columbia University, Climate Science & Solutions, Groundhog Day. Another Gobsmackingly Bananas Month. What's Up?, by James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Pushker Kharecha, January 4, 2023, the title is taken from a tweet by Zeke Hausfather.
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters (2023). DOI: 10.25921/stkw-7w73.
Fortune, Musk claims S&P ‘lost their integrity’ after Tesla gets booted from sustainability index while Exxon is included, by Christiaan Hetzner, May 18, 2022.
New York TImes, Sustainability Index Drops Tesla, Prompting Insult from Musk, By Jack Ewing and Stephen Gandel, May 18, 2022.
4. The (Re)Balancing Act of the S&P 500 ESG Index, by Margaret Dorn, Senior Director, Head of ESG Indices, North America, S&P Dow Jones Indices, May 17, 2022.
5. Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, ESG Ratings: A Compass without Direction, by Brian Tayan, a researcher with the Corporate Governance Research Initiative at Stanford Graduate School of Business, David Larcker, Professor of Accounting at Stanford Graduate School of Business; Edward Watts, Assistant Professor of Accounting at Yale School of Management; and Lukasz Pomorski, Lecturer at Yale School of Management, August 24, 2022.
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