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There may be more Not knowing what Norges Bank thinks about tax havens, but in another area the bank is now squeezing. For the first time, the bank excludes companies from the investments of the Petroleum Fund (Global Government Pension Fund) according to the so-called climate criterion.
It is a historic decision, and it opens the door to a completely different strategy from Norges Bank when it comes to which companies should be excluded from investments in our common money binge.
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Various media reported Yesterday, Norges Bank carried out a strong spring cleanup, kicked out companies that broke their ethics advice, a total of 12 total. What did not emerge was that at least four of these companies were dismissed according to the climate criterion, which had not been used before.
The climatic criterion has one long and fragile history. It was approved at the Storting as early as 2015, and would be implemented the following year. Then things were slow.
The Ministry of Finance was one of those that considered that the criterion was difficult to use, because it was difficult to establish rules for what constituted a violation. However, the general criterion for non-compliance was clear enough, namely that the companies carried out “actions or omissions that, at the aggregate level of the company, lead to greenhouse gas emissions.”
According to the reasons of the companies that are now excluded, four oil sands companies, we can read that they are expelled based on four criteria: Production emissions much higher than the average in the world, there are no plans to reduce emissions, no They are covered by a quota market similar to that of the EU, and are subject to a zero or low tax on CO2 emissions.
When the Norwegian main bank now it has excluded companies due to the climate criterion, this is done after pressure from the Storting last year, which finally obtained the guidelines of the Ministry of Finance in June last year. This has not been possible without significant political pressure.
It shows that the Petroleum Fund now functions in part as a climate policy tool, although there are also obvious economic reasons to invest away from companies that do not adequately take climate risk into account.
This decision will be noticed internationally. The Oil Fund is one of the largest in the world and owns almost 1.5 percent of all publicly traded companies in the world. Applying such criteria to your investments can affect strategies for companies and other investors alike.
The next step may be to design criteria that exclude companies with businesses and plans that do not align with the Paris goals.
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