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Morgan Stanley to exit global climate coalition

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Thursday, January 2, 2025

Morgan Stanley on Thursday announced its departure from a coalition of banks that aims to target net-zero emissions through lending and investment, the fifth group to do so in recent weeks. “Morgan Stanley has decided to withdraw from the Net-Zero Banking Alliance. Morgan Stanley’s commitment to net-zero remains unchanged. We aim to contribute to real-economy decarbonization by providing our clients with the advice and capital required to transform business models and reduce carbon intensity,” a spokesperson for the bank said in a statement Thursday. “We will continue to report on our progress as we work towards our 2030 interim financed emissions targets.” Morgan Stanley is the latest in an exodus of major banks from the compact, following the earlier withdrawals of Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo. The bank did not give a reason for leaving the alliance, which the United Nations established through its Environment Programme Finance Initiative in 2021. However, it comes weeks before a Republican trifecta is set to take office in Washington, where environmental and sustainable governance (ESG) initiatives are likely to be in its crosshairs. In June, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee accused major investment firms of “collusion” with climate activist groups. Weeks ago, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) led 11 GOP state attorneys general in a lawsuit against asset managers BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street that accused them of “conspiring to artificially constrict the coal market” through their industry holdings. BlackRock and State Street have called the allegations “baseless.” As early as last February, however, major banks and asset managing firms have signaled a retreat on climate commitments. That month, Bank of America backtracked on a vow that it would not fund new coal mining, shipping or burning infrastructure, while JPMorgan Chase’s investment arm exited another investment alliance, Climate Action 100+.

Morgan Stanley on Thursday announced its departure from a coalition of banks that aims to target net-zero emissions through lending and investment, the fifth group to do so in recent weeks.

“Morgan Stanley has decided to withdraw from the Net-Zero Banking Alliance. Morgan Stanley’s commitment to net-zero remains unchanged. We aim to contribute to real-economy decarbonization by providing our clients with the advice and capital required to transform business models and reduce carbon intensity,” a spokesperson for the bank said in a statement Thursday. “We will continue to report on our progress as we work towards our 2030 interim financed emissions targets.”

Morgan Stanley is the latest in an exodus of major banks from the compact, following the earlier withdrawals of Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo.

The bank did not give a reason for leaving the alliance, which the United Nations established through its Environment Programme Finance Initiative in 2021. However, it comes weeks before a Republican trifecta is set to take office in Washington, where environmental and sustainable governance (ESG) initiatives are likely to be in its crosshairs.

In June, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee accused major investment firms of “collusion” with climate activist groups. Weeks ago, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) led 11 GOP state attorneys general in a lawsuit against asset managers BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street that accused them of “conspiring to artificially constrict the coal market” through their industry holdings. BlackRock and State Street have called the allegations “baseless.”

As early as last February, however, major banks and asset managing firms have signaled a retreat on climate commitments. That month, Bank of America backtracked on a vow that it would not fund new coal mining, shipping or burning infrastructure, while JPMorgan Chase’s investment arm exited another investment alliance, Climate Action 100+.

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For plants, urban heat islands don’t mimic global warming

Scientists have found that trees in cities respond to higher temperatures differently than those in forests, potentially masking climate impacts.

It’s tricky to predict precisely what the impacts of climate change will be, given the many variables involved. To predict the impacts of a warmer world on plant life, some researchers look at urban “heat islands,” where, because of the effects of urban structures, temperatures consistently run a few degrees higher than those of the surrounding rural areas. This enables side-by-side comparisons of plant responses.But a new study by researchers at MIT and Harvard University has found that, at least for forests, urban heat islands are a poor proxy for global warming, and this may have led researchers to underestimate the impacts of warming in some cases. 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Still, “a lot of ecologists recognized that they weren’t perfect, but it was what we had,” he says.Most of the research by Des Marais’ group is lab-based, under conditions tightly controlled for temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide concentration. While there are a handful of experimental sites where conditions are modified out in the field, for example using heaters around one or a few trees, “those are super small-scale,” he says. “When you’re looking at these longer-term trends that are occurring over space that’s quite a bit larger than you could reasonably manipulate, an important question is, how do you control the variables?”Temperature gradients have offered one approach to this problem, but Des Marais and his students have also been focusing on the genetics of the tree species involved, comparing those sampled in cities to the same species sampled in a natural forest nearby. And it turned out there were differences, even between trees that appeared similar.“So, lo and behold, you think you’re only letting one variable change in your model, which is the temperature difference from an urban to a rural setting,” he says, “but in fact, it looks like there was also a genotypic diversity that was not being accounted for.”The genetic differences meant that the plants being studied were not representative of those in the natural environment, and the researchers found that the difference was actually masking the impact of warming. The urban trees, they found, were less affected than their natural counterparts in terms of when the plants’ leaves grew and unfurled, or “leafed out,” in the spring.The project began during the pandemic lockdown, when Blumstein was a graduate student. She had a grant to study red oak genotypes across New England, but was unable to travel because of lockdowns. So, she concentrated on trees that were within reach in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She then collaborated with people doing research at the Harvard Forest, a research forest in rural central Massachusetts. They collected three years of data from both locations, including the temperature profiles, the leafing-out timing, and the genetic profiles of the trees. Though the study was looking at red oaks specifically, the researchers say the findings are likely to apply to trees broadly.At the time, researchers had just sequenced the oak tree genome, and that allowed Blumstein and her colleagues to look for subtle differences among the red oaks in the two locations. The differences they found showed that the urban trees were more resistant to the effects of warmer temperatures than were those in the natural environment.“Initially, we saw these results and we were sort of like, oh, this is a bad thing,” Des Marais says. “Ecologists are getting this heat island effect wrong, which is true.” Fortunately, this can be easily corrected by factoring in genomic data. “It’s not that much more work, because sequencing genomes is so cheap and so straightforward. Now, if someone wants to look at an urban-rural gradient and make these kinds of predictions, well, that’s fine. 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Brisbane 2032 is no longer legally bound to be ‘climate positive’. Will it still leave a green legacy?

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Sarah Lunnon said a key principle of JSO and the civil disobedience movement generally was that activists would take responsibility for their actions. One of the first questions new joiners were asked is whether they would be willing to be locked up."As corporations and billionaires corrupt political systems across the world, we need a different approach. "We are creating a new strategy, to face this reality and to carry our responsibilities at this time," the group says, suggesting they may be planning to form a new movement.JSO's most high-profile figure, Roger Hallam, is one of the five activists convicted for their role in the M25 protests. In a message from his prison cell he acknowledged that JSO has only had a "marginal impact". That is "not due to lack of trying," he said. The failure lay with the UK's "elites and our leaders" who had walked away from their responsibility to tackle the climate crisis, Hallam claimed. 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Climate Researchers Wait for the Ax to FallClimate experts whose research is funded by federal grants hide, whisper and wait for their jobs to disappearBy Ariel Wittenberg, Chelsea Harvey & E&E News The Trump administration has slashed jobs and funding at the National Institutes of Health. Mark Wilson/Newsmakers/Getty ImagesCLIMATEWIRE | The National Institutes of Health has canceled grants for research on diversity, Covid-19 and vaccines. Climate scientists are hoping their work won’t be next — but fear it could be.“We are holding our breaths because we know we are on their list of targets,” said Marsha Wills-Karp, chair of the Johns Hopkins University Department of Environmental Health and Engineering. “It feels like it’s been slash and burn. We are hopeful they won’t get to climate, but we know it’s not likely.”Researchers in her department have received NIH grants to study the effects of wildfire air pollution on preterm birth rates and how hotter weather is affecting the health of babies at birth, measured by their weight and potential complications. They’re also studying how climate change is affecting nutrition.On supporting science journalismIf you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.At the University of Washington, Kristie Ebi is fearful that NIH could cut grants that fund studies about which populations are more vulnerable to extreme heat — a project that the team is planning to expand to include the dangers of wildfire smoke.“We’re working to provide information that departments of health, communities and individuals can use,” Ebi said. “The more you know, the more of those lives you can save.”None of those programs haven’t been cut yet. But there’s reason to think they could be, and soon.Earlier this week, ProPublica reported on an internal NIH memo that outlined how the agency will no longer fund research on the health effects of climate change. It followed a story in Mother Jones showing that NIH had ended three climate-related programs, including the Climate Change and Health Initiative. The program was created in 2022 and has had annual congressional appropriations of $40 million, according to a December NIH report that was taken offline by the agency earlier this year.“HHS is taking action to terminate research funding that is not aligned with NIH and HHS priorities,” said Emily Hilliard, a department spokesperson.“As we begin to Make America Healthy Again, it’s important to prioritize research that directly affects the health of Americans,” she added. “We will leave no stone unturned in identifying the root cause of the chronic disease epidemic as part of our mission to Make America Healthy Again.”She did not respond to questions about whether HHS believes that research into the health effects of heat and other types of extreme weather are aligned with agency priorities or whether HHS believes that heat waves affect the health of Americans. NIH did not respond to a request for comment.Heat is the No. 1 weather-related killer in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an agency within HHS. Heat caused or contributed to at least 2,300 deaths in 2023, CDC records show.In addition to turbocharging temperatures, climate change can affect people's health by increasing the prevalence of vector-borne diseases and the number of wildfires, whose smoke has been shown to increase asthma and cause cardiovascular problems.Those connections have long been studied with funding from the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences. Then in 2022, NIH broadened the scope of federal funding for climate health research, directing each of the agency’s 26 centers and institutes to study the dangers of climate change. At the time, the agency said “a mounting number of assessments and reports provide undeniable evidence that climate change is resulting in … direct and indirect consequences for human health and well-being.”Most of the climate researchers contacted by POLITICO's E&E News declined to talk publicly about their funding, citing concerns about their grants being rescinded if they spoke to the media.One researcher who was awarded federal funding said some experts in the climate and health field are pausing work related to their grants, like hiring.Others have turned down speaking requests because they're concerned about attracting attention from the Trump administration. Their work often focuses on how extreme weather has disproportional effects on the health of communities of color, according to several researchers who were granted anonymity for fear of retribution. One said that they declined a speaking invitation to avoid “accidentally us[ing] language we are not supposed to and then be told our language is not compliant with various executive orders” on diversity and equality.“We’ve been told we need to comply with those executive orders as federal grantees, but it’s hard to do if you are funded for something that the name is something you are not allowed to say,” the researcher said. “No one wants to do a social media post or a webinar or an event that might get them in trouble.”An annual conference hosted by NIH, Boston University and the Harvard School of Public Health was postponed earlier this month.Linda Birnbaum, who led the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences until 2017, said that during the first Trump administration, researchers were able to circumvent directives by wording grant applications as “climate and health” rather than “climate change.”“It worked then. 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