How Wall Street Turned Its Back on Climate Change

Gelles has covered business and sustainability at the Times for more than 12 years. In January 2020, Larry Fink, the chief executive of BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world, that he intended to use the trillions of dollars managed by his firm to address global warming. Every government, company, and shareholder must confront climate change, Mr. Fink wrote, calling for a fundamental reshaping of finance. A few days later, Mr. Fink arrived in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forums annual gathering, donning a scarf featuring a design of the warming stripes, a pattern that depicts 150 years of rising global temperatures. Mr. Finks impassioned call to address climate change was the unofficial start of a movement. Nearly every major financial institution was soon pledging to reduce emissions, joining high-minded alliances designed to phase out fossil fuels and promising to support clean energy. Environmental, social and governance factors, known as E.S.G., became a defining feature of Wall Street investing. But six years later, many of those Wall Street institutions have walked back or abandoned their commitments. The alliances like the Net-Zero Banking Alliance and the Net-Zero Asset Managers initiative that were meant to steer investments toward clean energy and away from fossil fuels have largely fallen apart. Investors have withdrawn tens of billions of dollars each quarter from E.S.G. funds. We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and your Times account, or for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? . Want all of The Times? .