In a new report that was heralded as a win for climate activists, Barclays has announced it is pulling out of direct financing of oil and gas projects. This move follows similar actions taken by Bank of America, HSBC, BNP Paribas, Credit Agricole, and Societe Generale. More and more climate activist groups are working diligently to cut off access to cash for oil and gas projects, and they have the cash to do it. The top five climate groups in the world are sitting on roughly 1.5 billion in cash.

These groups are quickly becoming the most powerful lobbying groups in the world, and they are using that power to influence governments, corporations, and big financial institutions around the world, and lets not forget the 10 billion that Jeff Bezos has put into the Earth Fund to distribute to these groups around the world, which will keep them in cash until the rapture. New investment in oil and gas projects is already down 15% over the last few years, and that number will only increase.

So what does all this mean for the future of fossil fuels? Simply put, it means they will be much more expensive, as we will enter a somewhat perpetual state of undersupply. The unintended consequences of these actions will be more record profits for fossil fuel companies and a much larger price tag for the energy transition. The removal of capital from the industry does nothing to remove the demand for fossil fuels. According to our own EIA, the U.S. will still be producing roughly the same amount of fossil fuels in 2050 as we do today.

With the energy transition expecting to take 20 billion metric tons of coal and over 2 billion barrels of oil to build out, making those things super expensive is not a good move for renewables themselves, as it will only mean higher and higher costs to build, and higher and higher utility rates for consumers. Couple all that with the fact that net zero by 2050 is at best a pipe dream, or as my friend Robert Bryce stated, “The chances are slim and none and slim left town,” an already impossible goal of net zero, will now be even more elusive to achieve.

https://mattrandolph.substack.com/p/choking-oil-and-gas-investments-will?utm_source=profile&utm_medium=reader2