This winter Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan, has become a whipping boy for climate change campaigners. Check out, by way of example, an online video where the actress Jane Fonda wears a red hat to lambast him for the bank’s “money pipeline” to fossil fuels.
But now Mr Dimon has a riposte, of sorts, to Ms Fonda: on Thursday he embraced a bipartisan Congressional proposal to cut emissions with a carbon tax and border tariffs. “The [plan] outlines a common sense policy framework to address climate change,” he told the Financial Times, arguing that it “will generate significant emission reductions, promote innovation and protect Americans from rising costs”.
Investors should pay attention. The idea of using carbon taxes and tariffs in America is not new: James Baker and George Shultz, two former senior Republican politicians, proposed a “carbon dividend” plan in 2017 under the auspices of the Climate Leadership Council. The council has since promoted this with the backing of figures such as Janet Yellen, the former US Federal Reserve chair, and Ray Dalio, the hedge fund billionaire.