The Norwegian government announced today a mandate for the country’s sovereign wealth fund to nearly double its investments in renewable energy amounting to $5-8.3 billion.
That’s great news! In the words of 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben: “Even those nations that made their fortune on oil are starting to see it’s not the future – the race to the exits is starting.”
Norway’s sovereign wealth fund also referred to as oil fund (most of the country’s proceeds from oil and gas went into it), is the world’s biggest investment fund valued at $840 billion USD. It owns 1.2% of the world’s listed stocks. Decisions on the fund’s investments can therefore be a real game changer with global implications.
It’s great that Norway is moving more money into renewables but there is little point if they’re spending huge sums of money digging up more fossil fuels at the same time. Now we need to see leadership from Norway by quickly divesting from fossil fuels and diverting that money towards renewables.
The Norwegian Parliament has set up a an expert group to assess whether the fund should phase out investments in coal, oil and gas, which currently represent 10% of the fund’s value.
The wealth fund’s remit is to make investments that benefit future generations. In the past it has excluded harmful industries such as nuclear weapon producers and tobacco companies from its portfolio.