HSBC Executive Blasts Climate-Change Hysteria

The global head of responsible investing at HSBC Asset Management, Stuart Kirk, has been fired from his position at the giant London-based global banking group. Why? He delivered a speech to a Financial Times Moral Money conference on May 19 in London, with the topic “Why investors need not worry about climate risk”. Columnist Terence Corcoran of the Canadian Financial Post described it as “a brilliant 15-minute presentation”.

Kirk, a former FT journalist, recognized that what he was about to say constituted “heresy”, before showing a slide titled “Unsubstantiated, shrill, partisan, self-serving, apocalyptic warnings are always wrong.” Below that title is a list of some of those who claim that climate change is a huge risk for the economy, including Mark Carney, Henry Paulson, the United Nations, the Bank of England, the World Economic Forum. Kirk asserted that the investment industry faces dramatic issues dealing with inflation, war, interest rates, and supply chains that are far more important than climate risk – but investment advisers are forced to concentrate on the latter.

In fact, central bankers are manipulating financial data to create the image of impending financial disaster due to climate change. In fact, just as the fanatics of the climate lobby manipulated data, the central banks, when carrying out the climate risk stress tests for banks and financial institutions, had to factor in a huge interest rate shock, because all the other risk data did not add up to the catastrophic crisis they were desperate to create.

Kiri complained that the “Mark Carneys of this world have convinced us” that the global economy is threatened despite the fact that “Human beings have been fantastic in adapting.” And, in his view, we will also be able to deal with the problems now arising.

And yet, he said, “there is always some nut-job telling me about the end of the world”. He provocatively quipped: “Who cares if Miami is six meters underwater in 100 years? Amsterdam has been six meters underwater for ages and that’s a really nice place.”

Similar criticism of the finance industry has been levelled by Tariq Fancy, the former chief investment officer for sustainable investing at BlackRock, who accused asset managers and consultants of selling “a dangerous time-wasting placebo” in the form of climate risk assets.

Kirk was suspended by HSBC within days. Terence Corcoran, in his op-ed, quoted a commentator who said: “He could be around a lot more in the future”, to which Corcoran added: “Let’s hope so. The investment world could use a new climate thought leader, and Captain Kirk could be the man.”