IEEFA Energy Finance 2016: Market Forces Continue to Push Energy Sector Change Globally

Market forces will continue to drive rapid evolution of the energy industry, organizers of IEEFA’s Energy Finance 2016 conference said in opening remarks today.

“Money talks,” said Michael Burger, executive director for the Sabin Center for Climate Change at Columbia Law School, which is playing host to the conference. “Much if not most climate action will be driven by money and markets.”

Sandy Buchanan, IEEFA’s executive director, said finance has become a growing force in energy market transitions and that information shared at the conference will be used “as parts of campaigns going on around the world.”

Buchanan said 2015 was a watershed year in coal-management policy especially, noting the recent federal moratorium on Powder River Basin coal leases, the announcement this year that New York State is going coal free, the growing difficulties facing development of coal mines in Australia and trends in India and China that show slowdown in the appetite for coal in those countries.

“Capital flight will increasingly be a thing,” said Tim Buckley, IEEFA’s director of energy finance studies, Australia, noting the decision last year by Norway’s pension fund to divest from coal and how the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and major investment banks have distanced themselves from coal.

“Further capital flight is inevitable,” said Buckley, citing ongoing collapses in coal stock and in stocks closely tied to coal-fired generation.