Funds with $8.8 trillion in assets urge Asia utilities to cut emissions.

Global asset managers — including JP Morgan Asset Management Inc. and Fidelity International Ltd. — will urge five Asian power generators to curb greenhouse gas emissions in an initiative coordinated by the Asia Investor Group on Climate Change.

The 13 institutional investors that manage $8.8 trillion among them will engage with the utilities that collectively emitted about the same amount of carbon dioxide as Spain in 2019, the group said in a statement. The companies that will be the focus of the program in its first year are China Resources Power Holdings Co., CLP Holdings Ltd., Japan’s Chubu Electric Power Co. and Electric Power Development Co., as well as Malaysia’s Tenaga Nasional Bhd.

“The transition of Asian utilities to net zero emissions will be critical for the world to meet its Paris Agreement goals,” AIGCC Executive Director Rebecca Mikula-Wright said in the statement. “Asian utilities are responsible for 23% of the world’s total carbon emissions.”

Asia’s coal-fired power plants have been operating for an average of 13 years and have a typical lifespan of about 40 years, Mikula-Wright said.

7 June 2021

IEEFA