Tater reads this:
Then asserts that:
Decode that and what they are saying is that companies must not make commitments or they might have to include the financial consequences of doing so in their accounts. This, of course, they would not wish to do. Such commitments will be very costly.
I have long argued that such commitments should be made by promoting sustainable cost accounting. This requires that:
A company have a full transition plan.
That plan be costed, in full.
Provision for that cost be included in the plan in precisely the way that EY is trying to avoid its clients having to do.
Those companies unable to finance their transitions should be declared carbon insolvent (if emissions are the issue) or environmentally insolvent if abuse of the biosphere is the issue instead.
But the quote is stating the opposite. You can’t make a provision under IAS 37 for your future actions and plans. Therefore having such plans doesn’t;t give rise to a provision that you’d prefer not to hit the accounts.
Oh, also, you’d not be declared carbon insolvent if you did because you can’t.
Those companies unable to finance their transitions should be declared carbon insolvent
Yes, very compelling.
Now please stand against that wall.
If you want to declare your business carbon insolvent, presumable you have to borrow someone else’s pencil.
What a load of bafflegab. I have no way of knowing whose interpretation of this unfathomable paragraph is correct. It seems to saying that you cannot make provision for things that have not already happened. It seems nonsensical. This would appear to prevent companies from making pension provisions
I’d love to see both companies and governments forced to honestly account for the cost of their ‘sustainable transition’ plans.
I would also like to see the bullshit assumptions challenged too. For example, in a Telegraph article which was vaguely critical of UK government eco-bollocks, they included a graph from the Climate Change Committee (I think) which projected that Britain’s total energy use would more than halve by 2050, despite the population being predicted to rise by 10% between now and then (and I suspect the actual rise will be a lot more).
However, the brains trust at the Terriblegraph has nothing to say about this obvious nonsense.
Historically, countries that get richer use more energy. This will probably continue to be true, though the rate of increase might decline a bit due to more efficient cars, batteries, light bulbs, etc.
Assuming the reverse (that countries that are poorer use less energy) is also true, that probably explains why our politicians’ masters are trying to make us as prosperous as 1970s Bangladesh.
A clear case of : The words themselves are clear english. The way they’re attached, hoever, is someone’s mushroom-induced nightmare.
If you need to “decode” a short paragraph, it’s either Math, or obfuscated code.
It clearly isn’t Math, and the latter is severely Frowned Upon…
Dear Mr Worstall
I suspect the authors of Constructive obligations have not checked the entity’s pronouns.
@ philip April 3, 2023 at 1:35 pm
“Historically, countries that get richer use more energy.”
Countries that use more energy get richer. As they use energy more efficiently, they get richer still. Countries that squander energy on green bollocks get poorer, but at least the Obesity Epidemic™ will be solved.
DP