Health warnings on reports from HSBC

HSBC's Stuart Kirk gave a provocative talk on how investors should be thinking about climate risk, so he was fired. 

His presentation had been approved internally at HSBC before he gave it, but they fired him for it afterwards.

 

I've watched the talk. Couldn't see much to disagree with. 

Climate change is real and important, but directors forcing their companies into disproportionately weighting climate risk are doing a disservice to shareholders. 

And consumers of reports from outfits like HSBC should upweight the chances that their reports will have had a strong political correctness filter placed over them. 

If a report from HSBC conforms to the received view, it is impossible to tell whether their truthful analysis led to the conclusion, or whether it was politically massaged, or whether contrary reports that diverged from the received view were put into a file drawer.