Has the oil spill begun or is it just a false start? Certainly, for now, the signals are multiplying and even if never as in the energy vicissitudes are the changes nor can they be sudden (unless we suffer serious consequences), the crunches in the world of fossil energy are growing and adding up as the days go by.
THE TURNING POINT OF RIAD
Let's see them, then. The most recent and in some respects the most thunderous, is the turn of the Riad. L'Saudi Arabia he has his 2020-year-old deputy crown prince say that "the country from XNUMX will be able to live without oil" and prepares to manage the program "Vision 2030” putting on the plate the sale of 5% of Saudi Aramco, the national oil company, and the establishment of a super-Fund endowed with 2 trillion dollars, a colossal amount capable of influencing global financial investments. Where will the new Fund invest its money? That's the point. World finance seems willing to take seriously the commitments on reducing global warming (to be contained within 2 degrees by 2030) that emerged from Cop21 in Paris. Not for ethical reasons, but above all for economic reasons. The Paris commitments were solemnly signed a few days ago by 175 states gathered in New York in the UN building. It had never happened before, and it's the second clue. The third is the accession of 9 major banks and investment funds to the Catalytic Finance Initiative: HSBC and Crédit Agricole, allied with Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, aim to invest 10 billion dollars in green technologies and have already raised 8 from various investors including Babson Capital and MassMutual, the European Investment Bank and International Finance Corp (subsidiary of the World Bank).
A MOUNTAIN OF INVESTMENTS
Same World Bank estimated that they are needed 89 billion investments by 2035 to limit the advance of global warming under the Paris Agreement. To intercept this demand, some banks have therefore begun to move. Others, such as JP Morgan, worried about the problem of stranded costs (stranded costs of leaving the system) have abandoned investments in coal. The heirs of John Rockefeller, founder of the dynasty, are slowly repudiating the barrel from which they drew their gigantic fortune. In 2014, the decision of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund to close with oil investments and that of Rockefeller Family Fund to divest from exploration and development: “There is no rational reason – argued the Fund – to continue looking for new hydrocarbon fields. The family has enjoyed a long history of making profits by investing in oil companies, including ExxonMobil (born from the remains of Standard Oil, founded by the progenitor, ed). But the story goes on, as it should be”.
RENEWABLES AND ELECTRIC CAR
On the opposite energy front, the polar star of new investments are renewables where the trend is continuously growing ($329 billion in 2015 according to Bloomberg) and not only did it not slow down, with oil at 30 dollars, but indeed it continued to grow. So much so that for the first time, again in 2015, 54% of the new electrical power installed in the world was generated by green plants according to the data collected in the United Nations Environment Program report.
However, green electricity production alone will not be enough to stop global warming. AND the real challenge is that of transport which are today, together with domestic heating, the main source of climate-changing emissions. But here the challenge is not only economic, it involves passions and emotions: is the world ready to say goodbye to the roar of the internal combustion engine to replace it with silent batteries on cars and trucks? The success, on Sunday 24 April, of the 62-hour flight over the Pacific by Solar Impulse 2, the solar plane which is continuing its round-the-world tour, recalled Charles Lindberg's legendary journey across the Atlantic. The conditions for green aviation are in their infancy but many signals are focusing on electric mobility.
Elon Musk He has sparked many expectations with his new one Tesla Model 3, presented at 35 dollars against the average 70 of current models. He collected 325 orders with a $1000 down payment each for deliveries in 2017-18: enthusiastic comments and others much more skeptical about the real possibility of keeping promises made, from an industrial point of view, in the face of the 400 million burned every three months by the Californian group. Yet all the utilities are shifting their development plans to renewables on the one hand, grids and electric mobility on the other. Enel in the lead. AND Ford's number one (as well as a newly elected member of the IBM board), Mark Fields, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February warned: “The pressure for new forms of mobility is very strong. Both from the point of view of the energy used and from that of the form of use of the means of transport: we are increasingly moving towards the electric motor and the sharing of the car and the journey. And we want to be ready for these challenges”. Now announce thealliance with Google for the self-driving car
Last hint: the rigorous Finance Minister Wolfgang Shaeuble is about to present the new to Chancellor Merkel incentive plan for the electric car: "reward" of 5.000 euros for those who choose an electric-only car and 3.000 euros for a plug-in hybrid until June 2018, to be reduced to 3 and 2 thousand euros respectively subsequently, as well as tax relief estimated at 100 million. Total cost 1,2 billion euros. (for now only 250 million available).
Bottom line: many clues don't prove it, say the jurists. In the case of the economy, there don't seem to be many doubts anymore: the fuse of change is lit, it is on the timing of farewell to fossil fuels that the final verdict will be played out: true revolution or only halfway through.
