Norway’s $1.2tn government pension fund has been urged to sell stakes in coal assets to help cut climate damage.
A bipartisan motion saw the Norwegian Parliament’s finance committee giving its consent to instruct the fund to sell its stakes in companies that generate their output or revenues of more than 30% from activities relating to coal.
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Earlier this year, the GPF began selling its coal portfolio as it claimed it increases risks to investments in the long-term.
The fund had left most of its holdings in companies that only mine coal and previously withdrew investments from producers of tobacco, nuclear weapons, and cluster bombs.
The Wall Street Journal reported that stakes in various utilities, including Germany’s RWE and E.ON, SSE in the UK, Enel in Italy and Dominion Resources and Duke Energy in the US are held by the fund.
According to the report, ‘Still Dirty, Still Dangerous’, by the end of 2014 the GPF increased its holdings in coal-based businesses by Nkr3bn ($384m) to Nkr85.8bn ($11bn).
Based on the report, the fund is the biggest single investor in coal mining companies, as well as utilities that are based on the material.
Three environmental groups have analysed and revealed that the fund has dejected more money into coal as part of its proposal to responsible investing, The Guardian reported.
In its report on the Norwegian GPF, US-based thinktank IEEFA said managers should pull out from all mining companies with more 20% of their output from coal.
Image: The GPF began selling its coal portfolio from early 2015. Photo: courtesy of nipitphand/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
