Fink Says World on Path to Failure in Climate Fight: IIF Update

(Bloomberg) -- BlackRock Inc. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink said emerging economies need about $1 trillion a year over the next three decades for the world to achieve carbon neutrality.

“Right now the emerging world is getting about $150 billion a year, so we’re on a pathway of failing,” Fink said Tuesday at the Institute of International Finance annual membership meeting, which is being held virtually. 

Fink, 68, said the world lacks an adequate plan to transition to green energy and that banks curtailing lending to oil and gas exploration companies is stoking short-term hyperinflation in the energy sector. That’s helping “large hydrocarbon nations like Saudi Arabia and Russia,” he said. “We need a long-term plan as a world to focus on what is legitimate debt demand for hydrocarbons.”

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with $9.5 trillion under management, is expanding its reach in environmentally sustainable investments and voicing concerns over corporate policies on climate, diversity and executive compensation.

Wells, BofA CEOs See Supply Chain Resolving in Time (1:36 p.m. NY)

Supply chain problems plaguing the U.S. economy are set to resolve in coming months, the CEOs of Wells Fargo & Co. and Bank of America Corp. said.

At some point the supply chain will “catch up to itself,” said Wells Fargo’s Charlie Scharf. Bank clients are confident that the issues are “transitory,” Scharf said.

“Hopefully it’ll straighten out over the next six months,” Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan said at the same event. “History will show it should.”

World Bank’s Reinhart Warns on Inflation, Debt (11:14 a.m. NY)

World Bank Chief Economist Carmen Reinhart indicated that the recent spike in inflation worldwide may prove persistent amid multiple supply shocks, with higher food and drink prices hitting the poor hardest.  

Policy makers will be torn “between continuing to stimulate in the hope that it makes the recovery more sustainable, more robust and at the same time you’re worried the pickup in inflation is destabilizing,” Reinhart said.

HSBC, BNP Paribas Chairmen Downplay Inflation Worry (10:51 a.m. NY)

The chairmen of HSBC Holdings Plc and BNP Paribas SA downplayed the threat of inflation, saying pressure was lessening as the post-Covid recovery takes hold. 

“Inflationary pressures would seem, across the bank and the businesses, to have started to dissipate across Asia,” HSBC’s Mark Tucker said at the Institute of International Finance annual meeting, which is being held virtually again this year. 

Inflation a Sign of Recovery, Lemierre Says (10:40 a.m. NY)

“I’m not so worried today about the increase of some prices,” said Jean Lemierre, chairman of BNP Paribas. “They can be well explained by the massive recovery and they will be dissipated over the next months.”

Ahead of the COP26 summit next month, Lemierre also called for a decent collaboration between the U.S., China and Europe to set common and global ESG standards as investments in these assets keep growing. “The norms and standards should not be a matter of competition,” he said. 

HSBC’s Tucker Sanguine on Asian Economies (9 a.m. NY)

Asian economies are faring well and inflation remains under control despite pressure elsewhere in the world, according to HSBC Holdings Plc Chairman Mark Tucker.

“Inflationary pressures would seem, across the bank and the businesses, to have started to dissipate across Asia,” mainly due to weakening short-term demand, Tucker said at the Institute of International Finance annual meeting, which is being held virtually again this year. 

Tucker also hailed the idea of carbon pricing as a tool to finance reducing pollution. “It would help many Asian economies that are some of the world’s big carbon sinks to allocate more to nature,” he said. 

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