Warm weather deteriorates ice
World largest wealth fund to press firms for climate data
OSLO, Feb 9, (RTRS): Norway’s $1 trillion wealth fund will push the 9,000 firms it invests in to disclose more data on greenhouse gases they emit and how they adapt to climate change during the coming annual general meeting season, a top fund official said.
The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund invests the revenues of Norway’s oil and gas production and has stakes in some 9,000 companies across 72 countries. It was an early mover among international investors in trying to assess climate change risk, wanting to avoid investments in one sector negatively impacting another – so-called “externalities” – and hurting its overall portfolio.
This year, it will make a fresh push on firms to explain how their business will be affected, and how they are adapting, to a world where temperatures may rise by 2 degrees Celsius (3.6°F).
“What we would like to see more of is scenarios, including a two-degree scenario, and we want better disclosure of the assumptions for these scenarios,” Carine Smith Ihenacho, the fund’s chief corporate governance officer, told Reuters.
“We want clear targets for CO2 emissions and other greenhouse gases, including methane. And we want to see reporting of progress against the targets,” she added.
“We would like to see it more disaggregated, meaning not for the whole company, but more broken down, for instance regional or even on an asset level.”
As part of its green push, the fund has been developing an in-house software, called Angle, that can take non-financial data, such as CO2 emissions, combine it with trading data and earnings data, and see how it will affect a company years ahead.
That tool has informed divestments in some 30 companies in 2018, fund CEO Yngve Slyngstad told Reuters, helping show that these companies did not have a sustainable business model over the long-term. He did not name them.
Presentation material showed two of the 30 divested companies were involved in palm oil; one in rubber; ten in coal-based power; and one in “CO2 intensity”.
The next step in the software’s development, first disclosed by Reuters in October, is to develop the platform to see how much of the carbon cost can be passed on to customers and how much companies must pay themselves.
Meanwhile, Maine’s giant spinning ice disk may soon meet its end because of unseasonably warm weather.
The Portland Press Herald reports the disk in the Presumpscot River has lost most of the shape and appearance that made it look like a blue moon.
Westbrook spokeswoman Tina Radel says that the disk was on the move Wednesday and that its “time may be limited.”
The ice disk formed in early January, drawing crowds to the river’s edge and attracting attention online.
It formed naturally where there is a circular current that creates a whirlpool effect.