Kansas Legislature’s clumsy regulatory attempt would remove vital tool to fight climate crisis

I’ve been around the Kansas Legislature for a while now, and a topic that comes up regularly is legislative attempts to prevent policies to address the challenge of human-caused climate disruption. I remember some years ago when Agenda 21 was the thing — the United Nations was going to send black helicopters to take away your car keys.

So far, I still have my car keys.

This year, there’s an effort by the usual coterie of climate change deniers — now led by Sen. Mike Thompson of Shawnee — to create an issue of investment firms using environmental, social and governance factors (ESG) in their decisions. A couple of bills have been heard in recent weeks to restrict state investment in firms that take ESG into account. The director of KPERS testified that could cost the fund more than $3 billion over 10 years.

I think of ESG legislation as the critical race theory of the economic sector: a nontroversy ginned up by right-wing talk radio and climate change-denying legislators. It may gin up the base, it may impress donors, but ESG legislation is culture war nonsense, not worthy of the Legislature’s time or effort.

In fact, ESG guidelines are an important tool in addressing the climate crisis. There is a longstanding effort by faith organizations to divest their holdings from fossil fuels. In 2016 the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted to work toward the goal of discontinuing any investment by the church in fossil fuel companies and committed to investing in corporations that take positive steps toward a sustainable environment.

The organizers of the fossil fuel disinvestment campaign claim that endowments, portfolios and pension funds worth just shy of $40 trillion have now committed to full or partial abstinence from coal, gas and oil stocks. Of that, 35.2% is related to faith-based investing.

Fr Joshtrom Isaac Kureethadam, coordinator of the Ecology Sector in the Vatican Dicastery for Integral Human Development, which assists Pope Francis’s work on the environment, noted last year that the Vatican had called on Catholic institutions to do the same.

“I applaud these prophetic institutions divesting today and encourage every institution in the world to reduce our dependence on such harmful energy sources by divesting from fossil fuels,” he said. “This is how prophetic institutions can live out our values and help the most vulnerable among us. If we want to achieve peace, and ensure a livable planet for all, including the future generations, we need to end our dependence on fossil fuels that fuel the current climate crisis.”

These decisions are a morally appropriate response to the reality of human-caused climate disruption, and these faith communities have every right to invest their money in ways that support their values, including the value of creation stewardship.

Some versions of ESG legislation would forbid the state having contracts with organizations that have fossil fuel divestment policies. This could mean that the state could not have refugee resettlement contracts with the Episcopal Church, or food disbursement contracts with the Lutheran Church or even, potentially, foster care contracts with Catholic institutions.

Financial institutions and companies pursuing sustainability goals are doing so in response to two incentives. First, their customers want to invest in ways that promote their values, including a livable planet. Second, they recognize that financial policies that take into account a changing investment environment caused by policy responses to climate change are prudent stewardship.

Just last week U.S. Treasury secretary Janet Yellin said: “Taking climate change into account is prudent risk management.” Pretending that climate change isn’t real, or that we don’t have to respond to it, is not a responsible way to guide the state’s investments.

It is not in Kansas’ interests to allow climate change deniers in the Legislature to punish organizations or institutions that take a responsible position on fossil fuel investment, whether that be because of the values they hold, or because they, in their professional capacity, respond to changes in the investment environment.

Nor is it in the state’s interest to use state power to defend an individual industry, no matter how important this industry might appear in the state’s self-definition. Kansas is already moving to being a clean energy bastion, and I applaud that movement.

That’s where the future lies, not in providing rearguard protection for an industry past its prime.

Rabbi Moti Rieber is executive director of Kansas Interfaith Action, a statewide, multifaith issue-advocacy organization that works on a variety of social, economic and climate justice issues. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.