Who is 'weaponising energy'?
Amid energy supply & price cises, Munich Re is set to withdraw its services to oil and gas companies. Europe is already on its knees after self-harming sanctions against Russia. So who is the enemy?
Yesterday, reinsurance giant Munich Re announced:
New Oil & Gas investment / underwriting guidelines
2022/10/06
As an environmentally conscientious business, Munich Re aims to play its part in meeting the targets of the Paris Climate Agreement. The Group has therefore set itself ambitious decarbonisation targets for its investments, its (re)insurance transactions and its own business operations.Against this backdrop, as of 1 April 2023 Munich Re will no longer invest in or insure contracts/projects exclusively covering the planning, financing, construction or operation of
new oil and gas fields, where as at 31 December 2022 no prior production has taken place or
new midstream infrastructure related to oil, which have not yet been under construction or operation as at 31 December 2022 and
new oil fired power plants, which have not yet been under construction or operation as at 31 December 2022
Munich Re is a huge firm, allegedly with some 12% global market share, though I’ve not checked this claim. Without insurance, of course, no oil or gas project can feasibly operate. While competing firms may well still be available (but not for want of climate protestors efforts to stop them) this means that the costs of insurance will inevitably rise, making projects unviable, and prolonging (perhaps indefinitely) the energy supply and price crises.
I have talked about the use of financial markets as governance — to inflict a green ideological agenda on society — elsewhere, and this is from the same camp. Here’s my film on the subject produced earlier this year.
Since before even the outbreak of war in Ukraine, many western politicians and commentators have been united in claiming that Russia, Moscow or Putin have “weaponised energy”.
But if energy is a “weapon”, then it was a weapon that was designed in Europe, manufactured in Europe, armed in Europe, aimed at Europe by Europe, and handed to Putin in Moscow by Europe, in a box with a big bow.
It was Europe that set its policy cart before the technology horse — targets that it had no idea how to meet, except through market distortions that offshored its industries, and increased dependence on energy and other imports. And it was member states that banned oil and gas exploration. And this reflects the self-harm caused by sanctions “against” Russia, that seem to have boosted the putative belligerent’s economy at the expense of the alliance’s.
A further ambiguity arises in the wake of the apparent sabotage of the Nordstream pipelines, rendering impossible any more gas transport from Russia to Germany. The supine media and western politicians are pointing the finger of blame at Russia itself. But nobody believes it, not least because it undermines the claim that Russia has “weaponised” energy: now Putin has no “weapon” — or, at least, he is left with a very much reduced arsenal.
Moreover, it was Ukraine that demanded Europe turn off the taps. It was Europe who declared that it would free itself from Russia’s energy tyranny.
The hope was of course that the world would unite against Russia. But this resolve has not been found. Biden jumped on a plane to urge oil producers to pump more. But war is unpredictable, and new geopolitical multipolarity has produced new alignments.
The day before yesterday, OPEC+ announced that production would be cut. More “weaponisation” of energy claimed American journalists.
But meanwhile, The Netherlands has begun winding down natural gas production at its its Groningen gas field — one of the biggest in the world. Mike Shellenbeger observes the full scale of the irony:
Meanwhile, green activists are cheering on Munich Re’s decision…
'Regine Richter, an activist with Urgewald, said she would have liked to see "bolder steps on gas". "But at least with this policy [Munich Re] has now shown that it's starting to take its own climate warnings seriously," she said.'
From the same camp, Greenpeace activists this week invaded the Conservative Party conference to complain about new North Sea oil and gas licences…
But as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, green activists can only ruin your day — or your conference. It’s policy that will kill you. However, even government now seems to be at the mercy of the likes of Munch Re and hordes of ESG zombies. It was not even a year ago that the UK government proudly boasted that it had successfully aligned financial institutions with $130 trillion AUM with the Net Zero agenda…
As a UNFCCC press release excitedly declared, Munich Re is just one of the world’s major reinsurers that would be joining the GFANZ.
Some of the world’s leading insurers and reinsurers are currently establishing the UN-convened Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA) under the auspices of UNEP FI’s Principles for Sustainable Insurance (PSI), building on their climate leadership as investors via the UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance. The seven companies involved in establishing the NZIA are AXA (Chair), Allianz, Aviva, Munich Re, SCOR, Swiss Re and Zurich Insurance Group. The NZIA has submitted a statement of intent to join the UN Race to Zero and become part of the GFANZ, and is expected to be officially launched at COP26.
So Liz Truss can issue as many licenses for North Sea oil and gas exploration as she likes. GFANZ members, with their $130 trillion will not be investing, will not be loaning, and will not be insuring hydrocarbon energy development.
All of which raises the questions…
Who has weaponised energy?
Against whom?
Why don’t angry journalists challenge Mike Bloomberg for his hostility, “holding the whole world hostage”? Why don’t people ask why Christopher Hohn is “weaponising” energy? Why aren’t people comparing Ursula von der Leyen to Vladimir Putin? Or Mark Rutte? Why aren’t Munich Re facing sanctions, like Gazprom and Russian banks? Why aren’t green NGOs — all of them funded by the likes of Bloomberg and Hohn — being treated like enemy agents?
If “weaponising energy” is a bad thing, then the enemy is much closer to home than Moscow.
A profound unreality drives our understanding of the war and energy policy, destroying all logic and reason in its struggle to survive. The longer the fantasy persists, the more destructive it will be when it explodes.
Always in any war, and let’s be realistic, we are at war - against Climate Change/Crisis Activists, there will always be a 5th Column operating - eating away from the inside to ensure they win. With the onset of Winter, escalating Energy prices will kill the old and sick, excess deaths will be recorded and the blame will not be put at the door of the Climate brigade, it will be the various Governments who will be blamed by the MSM, totally ignoring the fact that Renewables are neither Green or Efficient but expensive, Carbon intensive and intermittent.
Perhaps the board of Munich Re could be decarbonised?