|
|
Mark Carney’s Brookfield Global Transition Fund Raises $7.5 Billion, Is Largest ‘Net-Zero’ Fund
28 July 2021
EIRNS—Mark Carney joined the Toronto-based alternative asset manager Brookfield Asset Management as vice-chair and head of ESG (environment, social and governance) and impact fund investing in 2020. It is now the largest global fund committed to a net-zero economy by 2050.
Carney now co-leads BGTF with Brookfield’s Conor Teskey. Carney stated on Tuesday: “Brookfield is committed to achieving net-zero by 2050 or sooner, and to accelerating the global net-zero transition. As the world increasingly focuses on sustainability, the required capital and investable opportunities are expanding faster than originally expected, creating an even greater opportunity for large-scale investments that address climate change and generate attractive returns. Through this Fund, we are pleased to partner with best-in-class institutions to commit the capital required to scale clean energy and catalyze companies onto Paris-aligned net-zero pathways,” as reported by GlobeNewswire. Carney continued, “Enabling the transition will require global reach, large-scale capital, and deep operating expertise in renewable energy and decarbonization. As a leader across these capabilities, we look forward to engaging with these and other investors to drive meaningful and measurable change to the benefit of their portfolios and our planet.” This partnering “with best-in-class institutions” for Carney means four Canadian institutions: 1) Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan Board, Temasek (an investment company headquartered in Singapore), Public Sector Pension Investment Board, and Investment Management Corporation of Ontario, which promotes itself as “the only investment management organization purpose-built to serve Ontario’s public sector.” So, Mark Carney is basically taking the pension funds of two large unionized sectors, teachers and public employees of Ontario, and investing their money in green bubbles! Not to mention Public Sector Institutions of Ontario that will also see their funds invested in green boondoggles. Brookfield boasts that its renewable power business has “approximately $60 billion in assets under management, installed capacity of 21,000 megawatts and a 27,000 megawatt pipeline”. The CBC reported on August 26, 2020: “Brookfield said he [Carney] will work on the development of a group of funds that will combine positive social and environmental outcome with strong risk-adjusted returns.” The irony of Carney, who launched the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) for the Financial Stability Board with Michael Bloomberg in 2015, deciding to choose Brookfield becomes clear on examination of the company’s origin and unscrupulous behavior in the early 20th century: Brookfield got started in São Paulo, Brazil in 1896, then in 1912, it was incorporated in Toronto (and financed out of London) as Brazilian Traction, Light and Power Company. The company was renamed Brascan in 1969 and was part of the Toronto Bronfman’s Edper Holdings. It is rather ‘coherent’ for Carney to be advocating so-called ‘social change and responsibility’ from the Brookfield ‘pulpit’, when this Brazilian giant popularly known as The Light, in the Brazil of the 1930’s-1940’s, was the opposition to the FDR Good Neighbor Policy and the successful physical-economic collaboration of Roosevelt and Brazilian President Vargas to modernize Brazil. [gilles gervais] |
