Ceres joined forces with investors and partner organizations worldwide today to help launch a new five-year global initiative led by investors to engage with the largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters ... to act on climate change. The effort is backed by more than 225 global investors... with USD $26.3trillion in assets under management... As part of the investor initiative, known as Climate Action 100+, a growing number of investors, including the largest U.S. pension funds, will engage with the largest emitters to improve governance on climate change, curb emissions and strengthen climate-related financial disclosures.

“We believe that engaging with the companies in which we invest to aggressively step up their actions on climate change is consistent with our fiduciary duty and will contribute to achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement,” said Betty T. Yee, a board member of California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS). “It will require adjustments to business plans and practices consistent with keeping global temperature rise well below 2-degrees Celsius, and will require ambitious cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions — 80 percent by 2050.”

 ... Investors released the list of the first 100 companies that they plan to engage as part of the initiative. The list includes but is not limited to companies within the oil and gas, electric power and transportation sectors that have been identified as the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitters... Each year...Climate Action 100+ will produce a public annual report that will assess how the companies have responded to the collaborative engagement and help to set the participating investors’ engagement priorities for the year ahead. Companies may be removed from the list if they are considered to have made sufficient progress against the goals of the initiative.