West Virginia gained’t use BlackRock’s funding funds any longer as a part of its banking transactions, positioning itself as defending poor, defenseless American fossil gasoline corporations. The boycott relies on BlackRock’s current public statements on local weather—however ignores the realities of the place the monetary big is definitely placing its cash.

In a press launch published Monday, West Virginia State Treasurer Riley Moore huffed and puffed about BlackRock’s current sustainability initiatives, together with encouraging web zero insurance policies, in addition to the financial institution’s investments in sure Chinese corporations. Conservative media have targeted the bank in recent months, accusing it of pursuing “woke” local weather insurance policies whereas pouring cash into Chinese investments that they are saying threaten the U.S.

​​“BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has been outspoken in pressuring corporate leaders to commit to investment goals that will undermine reliable energy sources like coal, natural gas, and oil under the guise of helping the planet, but at the same time he’s pouring billions in new capital into China, turning a blind eye to abhorrent human rights violations, genocide, and that country’s role in creating the covid-19 global pandemic,” Moore stated within the launch.

Last yr, Moore made native headlines when he led a coalition of 14 state treasurers from across the nation to oppose what they stated was the Biden administration’s effort to stress banks to cease investing within the fossil gasoline trade. In a letter despatched to the White House final May, Moore and the treasurers cited a Politico article describing local weather envoy John Kerry’s efforts to sway banks on climate, accusing the federal authorities of “bully[ing] corporations into curtailing legal activities” and “picking economic winners and losers.” He’s additionally called not financing fossil fuels “completely un-American.”

This is all a part of the rising cultural battle entrance tied to fossil gasoline extraction. Republican politicians have tried to make the act of preserving a liveable biosphere “woke,” which… OK? During the early days of the pandemic, Republicans in Congress implored the Trump administration to make banks cease choosing on poor oil corporations simply making an attempt to drill the Arctic. The administration bought the message, with then-Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette calling it “redlining,” a really wild callback to racist housing practices. Oil-and-gas-loving Texas has launched laws to punish monetary establishments that wish to “boycott” fossil fuels, which ALEC promptly borrowed to draft laws for different states to push again on “woke capitalism” (its phrases, not ours).

Targeting BlackRock is the actual inform, although. The agency is an extremely influential monetary participant with $7 trillion in investments worldwide. BlackRock and CEO Larry Fink has made a lot of noise in recent years on its dedication to the local weather, however the financial institution’s precise observe report on local weather and funding in fossil fuels present it’s not the boogeyman Moore claims it’s. Far from it, the truth is.

BlackRock has billions invested in fossil fuels and continues to make extra investments, together with taking a majority ownership in a $15.5 billion pipeline deal with Saudi Aramco simply final month. The agency has additionally kicked greater than $2 billion to corporations extracting crude oil within the Amazon. Even West Virginia’s coal trade might need nothing to concern: BlackRock had greater than $1 trillion invested all over the world in coal tasks as of last year, together with $24 billion in investments in corporations that plan to develop their coal companies. (Someone may wish to inform Moore about that.)

That’s not prone to change any time quickly. In his yearly letter to investors launched Monday (titled, ominously, “The Power of Capitalism”), Fink defended the agency’s technique, claiming that it was not pushed by a want to be “woke,” however fairly to earn cash. That implies that divestment isn’t on the desk. “Divesting from entire sectors — or simply passing carbon-intensive assets from public markets to private markets — will not get the world to net zero,” he wrote. “And BlackRock does not pursue divestment from oil and gas companies as a policy.”

Sounds like BlackRock and Moore may be on the identical staff in spite of everything.