"Top business leaders issue an expletive-laced message on the green backlash"

• Top business leaders at the World Economic Forum delivered an expletive-laden message on the green backlash.
• It comes amid deep concern that businesses are increasingly shying away from climate action.
• “Now, the United States … have gone hard [for] fossil fuels and kind of made anyone going for renewables feel like they’re woke, they’re not looking after shareholders. Honestly, I’m here to tell all of Davos, that is not correct,” Andrew Forrest, founder of mining giant Fortescue, told CNBC.

Top business leaders this week delivered an expletive-laden plea in defense of climate action, describing the backlash to Europe’s green transition as an “aberration.”

In an interview with CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Allianz CEO Oliver Bäte said he disagreed with the suggestion that it may just be a matter of time before net zero is dismissed in Europe, saying short-term thinking on this issue is “bulls---.”

Asked about political leaders backtracking on their much-vaunted European Green New Deal and Norway’s oil fund reportedly defending a push from companies to water down their climate goals, Bäte said anyone who has children “will have to worry” about the planet’s future. [...]

The CEO of Allianz, one of the world’s biggest insurers, said it was integral for business and political leaders to stay the course on necessary energy transition targets. [...]

His comments come amid concerns that businesses are increasingly shying away from climate action, turning instead to issues such as competitiveness, while political support for net zero appears to be fading.

Indeed, at Davos, the event itself has shifted focus, looking now at how to cope with the worst elements of the climate crisis rather than, as in previous years, focusing on how to rapidly reduce planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions.

‘Renewable energy is eating fossil fuels for lunch’

Andrew Forrest, founder and executive chairman of Australian mining giant Fortescue, said Monday that the net zero term itself was “a little bit of a problem here.” He has previously called for the world to walk away from the “proven fantasy” of net zero, saying it is time to embrace “real zero” by 2040 instead.

Net zero refers to the goal of achieving a state of balance between the carbon emitted into the atmosphere and the carbon removed from it. More than 140 countries, including major polluters such as the U.S., India, and the European Union, have adopted plans to reach net zero.

“While we use excuses like carbon credits, offsets, all that rubbish, I think that the president of the United States has a proper angle to prosecute an argument against those who just stood up for net zero [but] I’d have to say this: We don’t need net any more,” Forrest told CNBC’s Karen Tso in Davos.

“Real zero is simply stopping the burning of fossil fuel. That is a very simple equation. When are you going to stop burning fossil fuel? Name the date. Then you will be giving your shareholders a lower cost and more competitive cost of energy.” [...]

Where do we go from here?

Not everyone is worried about Europe’s commitment to climate action. Joe Kaeser, chairman of Germany’s Siemens Energy, said he’s more focused on what action can be taken.

“We need to talk to our customers about what we can do together and lay out a pathway on how we can come down to net zero in the end,” Kaeser told CNBC on Tuesday.

“There is no issue that we cannot do it, but it is about technology and innovation and not about regulation saying, ‘you must do this, you must do that, you must do hydrogen,’ although everybody knows it will never be economically feasible,” he added.