‘Biggest oil barons’: the US private equity firms funding dirty energy projects
American private equity tycoons are profiteering from the global climate crisis by investing in fossil fuels which are driving greenhouse gas emissions, a new investigation reveals.
Oil and gas pipelines, coal plants and offshore drilling sites linked to Indigenous land violations, toxic leaks and deadly air pollution are among the dirty energy projects financed by some of the country’s largest private equity firms, according to an investigation by the corporate accountability non-profits LittleSis and the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (Pesp).
Private equity refers to an opaque form of financing away from public markets in which funds and investors buy and restructure companies including startups, troubled businesses and real estate.
Globally, the industry manages more than $7tn for wealthy individuals and institutional investors such as mutuals, hedge funds, endowments and pensions, investing in every sector from retail chains and healthcare to prisons and weapons.
Some of that money finances fossil fuel projects which release greenhouse gases that cause global heating. Higher atmospheric and ocean temperatures are directly linked to the rise in catastrophic weather events like drought, extreme temperatures and hurricanes.
Yet unlike banks and other publicly listed companies, private equity is exempt from most financial disclosure rules making it extremely difficult to track their assets.
It means people like firefighters and teachers whose pension funds are invested in private equity funds, have little way of knowing if their retirement nest egg is financing coal plants, oil wells or solar farms.
The Private Equity’s Dirty Dozen report, shared exclusively with the Guardian, provides a snapshot of the industry’s
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