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Article

14 May 2020

Author:
Reuters, New York Times

Norway Wealth Fund Blacklists Glencore, Other Commodity Giants Over Coal

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Norway's $1 trillion wealth fund is excluding some of the world's biggest commodities firms from its portfolio for their use and production of coal...

Norway's parliament agreed in June 2019 to toughen existing limits on coal investments by the world's largest wealth fund...

The fund put another set of companies ... under observation for possible exclusion later if they did not address their use or production of coal.

The value of holdings in this group stood at $3.9 billion at the end of last year...

The fund, which operates under ethical guidelines set by parliament, also said it was excluding four Canadian oil companies for producing excessive greenhouse gas emissions, the first time it has used that reason to blacklist firms...

Responding to the announcement, Anglo American said: "We are working towards an exit from our remaining thermal coal operations in South Africa, ensuring that we do so responsibly."

"We continue to examine suitable opportunities for our minority stake in Cerrejon," it said, referring to a Colombian mining venture with BHP, Anglo American and Glencore.

Sasol said it was implementing an "emission-reduction framework underpinned by short and medium-term targets," although it said coal would continue to play role in South Africa during a transition to lower-carbon energy sources.

Enel said it was developing its business in line with the Paris climate accords, which seek to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius and cut emissions to zero by 2050.

Uniper said it was in a dialogue with the fund about being under observation for possible exclusion.

"Uniper in its strategic new focus has presented a clear exit plan from coal and aims for climate-neutral power production in Europe by 2035," said a company spokesman.

RWE said it had cut carbon dioxide emissions by 90 million tonnes since 2012 and committed itself to becoming climate neutral by 2040. It was investing around 5 billion euros in the expansion of renewables up to 2022.

"Instead of quantitative stock-taking, the speed with which a company changes should be considered in our view," said the company spokesman. "Already today, we are among the globally leading companies for renewable energies."

Vistra Energy said it was looking forward to engaging with the fund about sustainability as it was in the process of transitioning away from coal, to a level that would put it well below the threshold that put the company on the fund's watch list.

Glencore, BHP and AGL Energy declined to comment.

Canadian Natural Resources, Cenovus Energy, Suncor Energy and Imperial Oil did not respond to requests for comment

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