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Norway wealth fund fails on its climate ambitions, NGO states

Norway's $1.6 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world's largest, falls short on its climate aspirations by failing to back numerous shareholder proposals pushing oil business to cut their greenhouse gas emissions, an NGO report said on Monday.

The fund swimming pools the Nordic nation's state earnings from oil and gas production. Given that 2022 its objective is for the 9,000 companies it purchases internationally to reach net no greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement.

As part of its technique, the fund's management, Norges Bank Financial Investment Management (NBIM), has actually set expectations for corporate boards on environment modification and votes at annual general meetings on this concern.

It states it engages with business in numerous methods, consisting of by means of voting on shareholder proposals, and in serious cases can divest from business if they stop working to respond.

The fund is failing short, nevertheless, on that ambition, according to a report by Norwegian NGO Framtiden i vaare hender ( the Future in our Hands), shared with ahead of its publication on Monday.

The report analysed the fund's ballot record last year on 16 climate resolutions at nine oil majors, including BP, Shell, TotalEnergies, Chevron and ExxonMobil.

It found the fund supported 7 such resolutions and backed techniques the group said were environment damaging in the remaining 9 of those 16 cases.

NBIM has, sometimes, opposed crucial shareholder resolutions on environment during yearly general conferences. This misalignment between NBIM's environment engagement method and its real ballot behaviour signals an unpleasant gap in action, stated the report.

NBIM likewise voted versus all climate resolutions at the yearly basic conferences of four oil majors - BP, Shell, TotalEnergies and Marathon - that have actually been flagged by CA100+, an investor-led effort that promotes for the largest emitters to tackle their emissions, as business that fall short in their efforts to deal with environment change.

NBIM's failure to back climate resolutions in line with worldwide concurred goals undermines its function as a steward of sustainable finance, said the report.