Less than three weeks ago, on December 23, in a post on optimism about the potential demise of the green energy fantasy, I took note that two of the largest U.S. banks had just quit something called the “Net Zero Banking Alliance.”  The two were Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo.  These two banks, along with many others, including all of the biggest ones, had joined the NZBA as it was getting organized under auspices of the UN back in 2021.  NZBA, together with other related groups organized around the same time, aspired to be cartels of financial institutions that would save the planet by starving hydrocarbon fuels of all investment capital, while re-directing the money to the “green” energy transition.  Now, shortly after the re-election of Donald Trump, two of the biggest banking giants had decided to exit.  Could this be a sign that the zero-carbon green energy fantasy was losing its grip?

In the short 19 days since that post, the trickle of resignations from the NZBA and related groups has turned into an avalanche.  In the blink of an eye, what once seemed a serious threat that hydrocarbon fuels could be snuffed out by a group boycott of investors has almost entirely gone away.

More on the latest developments later in this post.  But first, some history of NZBA and the related alphabet soup of do-gooders.

2021 was the year that the UN’s big climate confab, known as the “Conference of Parties” or “COP,” was to be held in Glasgow, Scotland.  Although the COPs are normally held every year, there had not been one in 2020 due to the Covid pandemic.  After the year hiatus, COP-26 was ultimately held from October 31 to November 13, 2021.  Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the UK, who had converted from one-time climate skeptic to all-in alarmist, was determined to make this COP-26 the be-all and end-all of all COPs.  The swarms of little aspiring tyrants in UN bureaucracies, just off their hugely successful Covid power grabs, were ready to flex their new muscles in the climate arena.