The Global Warming Consensus and "The Tobacco Strategy"

[jryan]

You implied that their investment portfolio was in AGW-related businesses. Don't shift the goalposts. Provide evidence or retract the assertion.

 

I didn't shift the goalposts, I have shown you that they are invested in solar energy markets through their paper titled "Selling Solar". Feel free to show me how all the brokered deals in that document between various financial interests, RBF, and the Solar industry with RBF providing support and capital investment . Here is a list of deals in this one area and one document alone (pardon formatting as it is pulled from a PDF, but if you want the numbers you can find this same list starting on page 9 of the paper):

 

• A joint venture has been undertaken by the Grameen Trusts, a

pioneer in small-scale community lending in Bangladesh, and

E&Co, a U.S.-based nonprofit whose mission is to encourage

the development of renewable energy enterprises in developing

countries. With RBF support for soft costs, Grameen and

E&Co are forming a stand-alone rural electrification company

that will pair Grameen’s widely decentralized credit operations

(operating in one half of Bangladesh’s villages) with E&Co’s

expertise in renewable energy. Because of Grameen’s stature in

international development circles, its success in distributing

solar systems throughout rural Bangladesh would go far toward

promoting the viability of solar home systems. The pairing of

solar system distribution with Grameen’s credit capability will

not only speed the diffusion of solar units through Bangladesh

but should also help other banks see the potential business

opportunities available in solar financing.

 

• In a similar effort to pair solar distribution with credit finance,

the Syndicate Bank in southern India, another Pocantico conference

participant, has launched a solar lending program for

rural households in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh that provides

solar home loans through its , branches. An Indiabased

solar energy service company that is a subsidiary of SELF

supplies and maintains the solar home systems for Syndicate

Bank customers, and is developing a network of solar service

centers to install , systems a year.

 

• E&Co is now in the final stages of developing a broad-based

solar electrification industry in Morocco. Using a franchise

model it has nicknamed MacSolar, E&Co is building a centralized

acquisition, distribution, and finance entity that will

encourage the development of dealerships by individual solar

entrepreneurs throughout the country. E&Co anticipates that

over , households could be served in the first three years

of MacSolar’s operation. The International Finance Corporation

(part of the World Bank Group) has expressed interest in

providing financing.

 

• The Solar Electric Light Fund’s industry-creation efforts in

India and in China are expanding rapidly. Both countries now

have well established credit networks and indigenous manufacturing

capability. SELF has also initiated an expansion of

its work in Vietnam, with RBF support. SELF’s partner in this

effort, the Vietnam Womens Union, is the world’s largest national

women’s organization, with over  million members.

Vietnam’s rural population appears to be extremely receptive

to solar systems and this project, like Grameen and E&Co’s

efforts in Bangladesh, could become a case study in large-scale

solar home system diffusion.

 

• Environmental Enterprises Assistance Fund (EEAF) has established

Corporacion Financiera Ambiental (CFA), a  million

fund for environmental investment in Central America. EEAF

will be the manager of this fund, and hopes to identify several

renewable energy investment opportunities, including “off-thegrid”

SHS companies. Investors in the CFA Fund include the

Multilateral Investment Fund of the InterAmerican Development

Bank, the Swiss government, Citizen’s Energy, and Triodos Bank.

EEAF, with funding from USAID, has also begun efforts in

Mexico to identify, evaluate, and invest in renewable energy and

other environmental projects throughout the country.

 

• In response to suggestions made at Pocantico, Solarex (the largest

U.S. manufacturer of solar panels, owned jointly by Amoco

and Enron) has begun to urge its dealers to provide credit to

their customers as a vehicle for expanding sales and is explorPOCANTICO

PAPER NO 2

ing its ability to offer a secure line of credit to its dealers to

encourage these financed purchases.

 

• The National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colorado, has

decided to serve as a trainer of solar entrepreneurs internationally,

and will provide technical assistance to aid in the creation

of locally based solar industries in developing countries. NREL

has a widely distributed group of partners around the world.

 

• The World Bank Group and four private foundations (Rockefeller

Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, W. Alton Jones

Foundation, and MacArthur Foundation) are collaborating to

develop a new institutional credit facility—a solar bank—

that could deliver between  million and  million over

the next five years, principally from private financial markets,

for working capital and end-user financing. The collaborative

also hopes to develop a complementary nonprofit corporation

to provide guidance on project preparation, training, marketing,

and government policy.

 

• The International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Global

Environment Facility (GEF) are moving through the approval

process for the  million “PV Market Transformation Initiative”

(PVMTI). The PVMTI is designed to significantly

accelerate the commercialization, market penetration, and

financial viability of PV technology in the developing world.

 

• With RBF support, Environmental Advantage and the National

Renewable Energy Lab have undertaken the financial and legal

research called for by Pocantico participants. EA is actively

seeking investors and lenders to buy receivables from Sudimara

Solar, Soluz, and New World Power, all of which have expressed

a need for working capital to expand their businesses. Working

with bankers at Solomon Brothers, EA is also exploring

the creation of receivables financing as well as equity and debt

fund vehicles in which large insurance companies could invest.

To continue these efforts in the long run, EA is developing

an investment banking subsidiary, called Sun Capital, to

provide financial services for solar companies.

[swansont]

I didn't shift the goalposts, I have shown you that they are invested in solar energy markets through their paper titled "Selling Solar". Feel free to show me how all the brokered deals in that document between various financial interests, RBF, and the Solar industry with RBF providing support and capital investment . Here is a list of deals in this one area and one document alone (pardon formatting as it is pulled from a PDF, but if you want the numbers you can find this same list starting on page 9 of the paper):

 

"Invested in solar" by supporting the development of solar projects is not the same thing as "investments in solar" as in owning stocks. That's why this is moving the goal posts, as well as equivocation. You provided the response to a different question than was asked.

 

Do you have evidence that their investment portfolio is invested in AGW-related technology?

 

 

OF COURSE they support solar energy; it's in their mission statement! That's money outflow from their endowment. You've cited examples of them GIVING MONEY AWAY. I'm asking how they are making money off of this!

[jryan]

"Invested in solar" by supporting the development of solar projects is not the same thing as "investments in solar" as in owning stocks. That's why this is moving the goal posts, as well as equivocation. You provided the response to a different question than was asked.

 

Do you have evidence that their investment portfolio is invested in AGW-related technology?

 

 

OF COURSE they support solar energy; it's in their mission statement! That's money outflow from their endowment. You've cited examples of them GIVING MONEY AWAY. I'm asking how they are making money off of this!

 

I'm still tracking down the RBF portfolio in total, buut I printed the full list of solar energy programs to show that they were not merely giving money to solar projects by also providing loans to solar energy companies.

 

But I'll admit, finding the full list of what RBF actually makes money on is rather difficult. And then their are the individual Rockefellers, and the Rockefeller Group, the Rockefeller Foundation to look up, Rockefeller&CO, and so on.

[swansont]

I'm still tracking down the RBF portfolio in total, buut I printed the full list of solar energy programs to show that they were not merely giving money to solar projects by also providing loans to solar energy companies.

 

But I'll admit, finding the full list of what RBF actually makes money on is rather difficult. And then their are the individual Rockefellers, and the Rockefeller Group, the Rockefeller Foundation to look up, Rockefeller&CO, and so on.

 

So you have no proof for your contention.

[JohnB]

Don't the Rockefellers have major banking interests?

 

Banking interests seem to be heavily involved with the Carbon Trading market.

 

As a logical point. If the foundation pushed things that were not advantagous to the business interests of the family, then the family would lose money and eventually have none left for "Philanthropic" foundations.

 

Somehow I can't really see that happening, can anybody else?