Norway fund poised to insist stocks set targets for emission reductions

The world’s biggest owner of publicly traded stocks, Norway’s sovereign-wealth fund, is about to get the political go-ahead to insist that all companies in its portfolio have clear targets for cutting CO2 emissions.

Norway’s Labor Party, which this month won elections that focused on the country’s fossil-fuel dependence, has made clear it wants to embrace more aggressive environmental policies. That includes providing a more stringent framework for Norges Bank Investment Management. The $1.4 trillion fund should now commit to net-zero carbon-dioxide emissions by 2050, Espen Barth Eide, Labor’s climate spokesman, told Bloomberg.

It’s a goal that was enshrined in the 2015 Paris Agreement as an essential step toward preventing catastrophic temperature rises. Norway’s reluctance until now to sign up its wealth fund, which owns about 1.5% of the world’s stocks, has drawn condemnation from climate activists. But as scientists warn that temperatures are rising at a much more dangerous pace than previously feared, the mood — even in oil-dependent states like Norway — is changing.

“We want the fund to use active ownership strategies to achieve net-zero across the companies in the portfolio,” Eide said in an interview. 

27 September 2021

IEEFA