Investors that manage $47tn demand world’s biggest polluters back plan for net-zero emissions
A group representing investors that collectively manage more than US$47tn in assets has demanded the world’s biggest corporate polluters back strategies to reach net-zero emissions and promised to hold them to public account.
Climate Action 100+, an initiative supported by 518 institutional investor organisations across the globe, has written to 161 fossil fuel, mining, transport and other big-emitting companies to set 30 climate measures and targets against which they will be analysed in a report to be released early next year.
It is the latest step in a campaign by climate-concerned shareholders to force business leaders to explain how their targets and strategies will help reach the goals of the 2015 Paris agreement.
The targeted companies are responsible for up to 80% of global industrial greenhouse gas emissions. They include mining giant BHP, which last week promised to reduce emissions from its operations by 30% over the next decade on a path to net zero by 2050 after sustained pressure from activist shareholder groups.
Others on the list include Exxon Mobil, PetroChina, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Rio Tinto, BlueScope Steel and major Australian energy companies AGL, Santos, Woodside and Origin. [Continue reading…]