Norway to divest €5 billion from coal giants
Published by Stephanie Roker,
Editor
World Coal,
On 12 June, the Norwegian Parliament is expected to vote in favour of the government’s proposal to tighten the coal exclusion criteria of Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), Europe’s largest sovereign wealth fund. According to research by the NGOs Urgewald and Framtiden i våre hender (FIVH), this affects eight coal companies that will be divested. The NGOs estimate the volume of the new divestment action to total €5.1 billion, which is more than the €4 billion the Fund shed in 2015, when it adopted its first coal exclusion criteria.
While the 2015 criteria were based on a company’s relative exposure to coal, the new criteria are based on absolute thresholds that capture the world’s largest coal producers and coal plant operators. After the expected parliamentary decision, all companies which are operating over 10 GW of coal-fired capacity or producing over 20 million tpy of coal will be blacklisted by the Norwegian Government Pension Fund.
According to Urgewald’s Global Coal Exit List, the following coal companies in the Pension Fund’s portfolio fall under the new criteria: AGL Energy (Australia), Anglo American PLC (UK), BHP Billiton (Australia), Enel (Italy), Glencore (Switzerland), RWE (Germany), South32 (Australia) and Uniper (Germany).
Read the article online at: https://www.worldcoal.com/power/12062019/norway-to-divest-5-billion-from-coal-giants/
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