– A great victory – E24

– We are very happy, says Frode Pleym at Greenpeace Norway to E24.

On Wednesday night, the Petroleum Fund announced that it is expelling several coal companies, as well as four Canadian oil sands producers. This is the first time that the Fund has adopted two new criteria that have not been used before.

– It is fantastic that the new carbon criterion is actively used. None of these companies has anything to do with the fund. It’s also surprising that they tackle companies with tar sands problems, says Pleym.

“This is noticeable and has an effect on the management of other funds,” he adds.

According to Bloomberg’s calculations, the Petroleum Fund has downloaded shares for around $ 3.3 billion ($ 33.4 billion) after this round of sales, based on holdings the fund has declared in the New Year.

– A great victory

Else Hendel, Senior Advisor on Sustainable Finance, is also pleased.

– A great victory for WWF and Greenpeace, Zero and the Future in our hands that we have struggled with, email E24.

– It is good news that the largest coal producers in absolute numbers are finally out of the Petroleum Fund. There was a great weakness in the old view that the oil fund was invested in the main coal producers, as long as these companies also operated with much more, so the proportion of coal was generally small, he writes.

The future in our hands has also been very critical for the coal investments of the Petroleum Fund.

– Hurrah! Finally, Norges Bank excludes some of the oil fund companies with unacceptable greenhouse gas emissions. We have been working on this for a long time, writes Anja Bakken Riise in the future in our hands in an email to E24.

She believes that the Petroleum Fund still has a job to do and wonders why it has taken so long.

– Our common savings money has long supported climate damaging activity. The Ethics Council has done painstaking work, but has stopped at Norges Bank, Riise says.

– Norges Bank must follow up on the Storting decision, and here we also lose faster decisions and exclusions. Other funds are faster in the field than this without acting “irresponsibly,” whereupon the bank bases its collection, she says.

First use of the climatic criterion.

The first four companies expelled from the Petroleum Fund for climatic reasons are active in oil sands in the province of Alberta, Canada.

These companies include Suncor Energy Inc, which is also active on the Norwegian continental shelf with ownership in fields and discoveries such as Oda, Fenja and Beta, in addition to Imperial Oil Limited, Canadian Natural Resources Limited and Cenovus Energy Inc.

The draft results after an evaluation of “actions or omissions that, at the aggregate level of the company, lead unacceptably to greenhouse gas emissions,” according to the Norges Bank. The bank’s board of directors has the final say in such decisions, and they base their decisions on the recommendations of the Ethics Council.

Has Norwegian businesses

Among the companies that have now been expelled under the strictest criteria for coal is South African Sasol, who along with Equinor, Gassnova and Shell are co-owners of the CO₂ testing center in Mongstad.

Furthermore, Norges Bank is launching one of Germany’s largest energy producers, RWE, along with commodity giant Glencore, AGL Energy Ltd and Anglo American PLC.

European power company Uniper SE is being watched, along with BHP Group Ltd / BHP Group Plc, Vistra Energy Corp and Enel SpA, according to Norges Bank.

Finn’s Fortum, which owns 73.4 percent of Uniper’s shares, is also active in Norway, including the waste incineration plant in Klemetsrud.

see more