'They Don't Understand': Henry Kravis Rebukes Climate Protesters Who Interrupted Him - Yahoo Finance
‘They Don’t Understand’: Henry Kravis Rebukes Climate Protesters Who Interrupted Him
(Bloomberg) -- KKR & Co. co-founder Henry Kravis pushed back against climate activists who interrupted a speech to criticize the firm’s fossil-fuel investments, saying they underestimate the difficulty of shifting the economy to clean energy.
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Kravis was speaking on a panel at the Conference of Montreal on Monday when protesters walked to a podium on stage and accused him of “ruining Canada.” KKR owns a stake in Coastal GasLink, a controversial pipeline project in Western Canada that will supply gas to a huge liquefied natural gas facility on the coast of British Columbia.
“They don’t understand the facts,” Kravis, 80, said after the protesters were led away. “They would like to push a button and have no hydrocarbons.” It will take more than $200 trillion in investment to move the global economy to net-zero emissions by 2050, he said.
“I’m not quite sure I understand how we’re going to get there, and I don’t think we ever get there totally,” Kravis said, while acknowledging that climate change is a serious issue that requires significant measures.
Last year, activists protested at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, calling on the institution to cut ties with Kravis and his wife, Marie-Josée Kravis, who’s the chair of MoMA.
Last week, Coastal GasLink sold C$7.15 billion of new debt — a record for a Canadian corporate bond deal — to refinance construction costs.
Also on Monday, more than 20 protesters were arrested outside of Citigroup Inc.’s headquarters in New York. The activists have promised a months-long campaign against the Wall Street bank.
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Related Knowledge Center: Climate diplomacy
Talks are well underway in preparation for the next major international meeting on climate change, 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28), scheduled to begin Nov. 30 in the United Arab Emirates.
Much like last year’s COP27, finances — specifically, aid to developing nations — will be at the center of conference deliberations.
The conference faces an even greater sense of urgency brought on by the Sept. 8, 2023, release of the first global stocktake, which calls for accelerated action to meet the goals set in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement (COP21).
Climate diplomacy: COP 27 | Climate diplomacy: COP 28 | Climate diplomacy: COP 29