Green vision required

18 May 2020 By Hugo Dixon Follow @hugodixon

There’s a growing investor consensus that post-pandemic recovery plans should be green. But what should those “green new deals” look like? How should they be funded? And how can governments be pressurised to play ball?

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Norway’s $1 trillion wealth fund is excluding some of the world’s biggest commodities firms from its portfolio for their use and production of coal, Reuters reported on May 13.

The fund will not invest in Glencore, Anglo American, German utility RWE and South African petrochemicals firm Sasol.

Meanwhile, the world’s richest nations must ensure their Covid-19 recovery plans are sustainable and help meet the goals of the Paris climate accord, according to leading global investor groups that together manage trillions of dollars in assets.

“Recovery plans that exacerbate climate change would expose investors and national economies to escalating financial, health and social risks in the coming years,” they said in a statement said on Monday.

“Governments should avoid the prioritisation of risky, short-term emissions-intensive projects,” added the groups, which include the Institutional Investor Group on Climate Change, members of which include BlackRock.

Hugo Dixon is a journalist, entrepreneur and political campaigner. He was Breakingviews’ first editor-in-chief and before that ran the Financial Times’ Lex Column. He also founded InFacts, a journalistic enterprise which until December 2019 was making the case against Brexit.

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