Finance beat: Finking (Yay!) on ESG

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s 2023 investor letter “colored in” a “new investment climate,” observes Rupert Darwall at RealClearEnergy. “Whereas Fink’s 2021 letter to CEOs mentioned net zero” — i.e. “net zero emissions targets” — “22 times and his 2022 letter, nine times, net zero was referred to only once this year.” “Climate rates five mentions this year, compared with 27 two years ago.” Indeed, Fink admits “it is not the role of an asset manager like BlackRock to engineer a particular outcome in the economy.” Which suggests “the world is quietly moving on from net zero.” Good: “It’s high time to end talk about existential crises to be addressed with extraordinarily costly measures” and “turn attention to tackling soluble problems with positive solutions.”