The difference between Blackrock and China

Some big news yesterday.

The Government announced a deal with US Investment Firm Blackrock for a $2 billion fund for renewable electricity projects.

From the Beehive website:

The Government has worked with BlackRock, one of the world’s largest investors in climate infrastructure and clean technology, to launch a $2 billion fund with the goal of making New Zealand one of the first countries in the world to reach 100% renewable electricity.

Prime Minister Chris Hipkins announced the first of its kind New Zealand net zero Fund alongside Minister of Energy and Resources Megan Woods and representatives of BlackRock in Auckland today.

“This is a first of its kind fund in the country that demonstrates the huge economic potential of New Zealand being a climate leader and our goal of generating 100% renewable electricity,” Chris Hipkins said.

“It proves again that we can grow our economy while we lower emissions. This fund is a massive opportunity for New Zealand innovators to develop and grow companies.

“I’m absolutely stoked about what this means for Kiwi ingenuity in renewable energy; it shows that our ambitious climate targets have the world’s attention, and that they are good for the climate, good for the economy, and will help create highly skilled jobs.

Conspiracy nuts will be losing their shirts.  A trip to Blackrock last year by Jacinda Ardern caused a great deal of disruption in the force.  As detailed by Toby Manhire at the Spinoff:

The online misinformation machine is insatiable, feeding on grains of truth to make mountains of bullshit about, you know, the secretive deep state cabal that rules the world. Jacinda Ardern is a recurring character in this fabulist universe, often cropping up in the company of Emmanuel Macron and Justin Trudeau, all of whom are baselessly portrayed as puppets of octogenarian World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab and the new world order plot.

One such grain was found in Ardern’s recent American trip. Specifically, her participation in a meeting hosted at BlackRock. Suitably scratchy footage of Ardern leaving the massive, multinational manager of financial assets has flooded the usual social media channels in recent days, complete with horrified stage-whispers ranging from hyperbole to outright fabrications.

Ardern, pantomimed one of many articles on an American misinformation-strewn pseudo-news site, was shown to be “a pawn doing the bidding of the New World Order”. “Someone just got busted coming out of BlackRock,” posted another conspiracist Twitter account with “Redpill” in the username on Saturday. “Was this the real reason she was in the US, and used the meeting with Biden as cover?” The tweet was re-posted by more than 5,000 accounts, with the accompanying video as of yesterday viewed more than 570,000 times.

News of the visit was surreptitiously hidden on Ardern’s public facebook page.  You have to marvel the ability of the right to ferret out the truth.

Greenpeace has expressed caution and urged the Government to take more proactive steps to support the development of renewable energy sources, particularly at the household and community level.  From the Greenpeace website:

Greenpeace is calling for caution in response to today’s announcement that the Government has partnered with BlackRock to increase finance for renewable energy.

“It’s good to see the Government finally showing some ambition for real climate action,” says Greenpeace spokesperson Amanda Larsson.

“Building a significant amount of new renewables is essential if we’re going to replace climate-polluting fossil fuels, especially in the transport and industrial sectors. But how you do renewables also matters.”

Greenpeace is concerned about the heavy reliance on private finance to achieve 100% renewable energy goals.

“This announcement hasn’t been balanced with meaningful policies to support household solar or community energy, as has been done in most other countries that are leading the charge on renewables, like Denmark and Germany. Even in the US and Australia, there is much more support for household and community energy,” says Larsson.

“What we’ve seen in countries that have done renewable energy rollouts well is that local ownership is essential for generating buy-in to new renewables and ensuring that local people and communities benefit. That kind of public buy-in speeds up the roll-out of renewables.

But the announcement is a good start.  Although as pointed out by Ad in this post local resourcing of these projects is preferrable.  At one level this feels like Blackrock investing in a bolt hole at a time that the world is starting to burn.

The fund is not the solution.  It is estimated that a total of $42 billion will be required to make our electricity supply fully based on renewables.  The Blackrock fund is worth $2 billion.

Meanwhile National has expressed support for the fund.  From Eloise Gibson at Stuff:

National Party leader Christopher Luxon welcomed the $2bn investment: “…it underscores exactly what we’ve been saying – that the world is awash with investment opportunities for companies and funds that actually want to invest in renewable energy,” he said. However Luxon said New Zealand was too slow to consent renewable energy projects.

“You can build a wind farm in two years, but it’s taking eight years to consent it here in New Zealand.”

Hipkins said the Government’s Resource Management Act reforms would speed up consenting, reforms he said National wanted to scrap.

Luxon does not discriminate.  He confirmed recently that National would absolutely take money from China to pay for the roads it wants to build.

If only he understood the ability of the state to borrow the money and do the work itself.  Long term this is cheaper and we retain greater control.