Last week, Donna Lisenby, Clean and Safe Energy Campaign Manager of Waterkeeper Alliance, was invited to Oslo, Norway by Heffa Schücking of Urgewald to speak to members of the Norwegian Parliament and the Norwegian Council on Ethics, which provides oversight for the pension fund investments. She did an in-depth interview in Norway’s largest newspaper, Aftenposten, resulting in a front-page story on Duke Energy’s pollution of North Carolina surface water and ground water, as well as their recent criminal conviction.
Just two days after Aftenposten ran the story, the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global announced its divestment from the coal industry.
On May 27th, the Finance Committee of the Norwegian Parliament issued a unanimous recommendation to divest the country’s sovereign wealth fund from the coal industry.
The Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global is not only the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund; it is also one of the top ten investors in the global coal industry.
The recommendation asks the government to exclude companies deriving more than 30% of their revenues or their power production from coal. It will be formally adopted by the Parliament on June 5th. “It is a happy coincidence that this is World Environment Day,” says Arild Hermstad from the Norwegian NGO ‘The Future in our Hands’. “Coal is bad for all aspects of our environment: it destroys landscapes, contaminates water resources, pollutes the air and is the number one threat for our climate. Such investments are not in line with the values of Norwegian society, and the unanimous vote of the Finance Committee means that this is now recognized across all party lines.”
MP Torstein Tvedt Solberg from the Labor Party, who helped broker the agreement said: “I am pleased that all parties have agreed to withdraw the Pension Fund from coal. This is a great victory for our climate.”
“Through this decision, Norway is really taking a lead,” says Heffa Schücking from the German NGO urgewald. According to Schücking, the Norwegian exclusion criteria go further than what French Insurer Axa announced last week and set a new standard for investors worldwide.
The Parliament is instructing the Norwegian Government to begin implementing the new criteria from January 2016 onwards. “We expect that billions of euros will be withdrawn from the coal industry, when this happens,” says Truls Gulowsen from Greenpeace. “This is a huge win for the divestment movement and a real sign of hope that investment patterns can be changed, “ he adds.
NGOs expect that the Pension Fund’s investments in companies like Germany’s RWE, China’s Shenhua, Duke Energy from the Unites States, Australia’s AGL Energy, Reliance Power from India, Japan’s Electric Power Development Corporation, Semirara Mining from the Philippines and Poland’s PGE will, for example, all be shed. “Norwegian NGOs will not be alone, when they celebrate,” says Schücking. “There are broad popular resistance movements against the coal industry in all of these countries, and they are going to say: Thank you for divesting, Norway!”
For more information, contact:
Heffa Schuecking: [email protected] or +49 160 96761436
Truls Gulowsen: [email protected] or +47 901 07 904
Arild Hermstad: [email protected] or +47 980 36 762