North Rhine-Westphalia wants the pension fund for its civil servants to follow ethical investment criteria that are supposed to ban investments that harm the climate.

Germany’s most populous state and home to Europe’s biggest source of CO2 emissions, the Rhineland coalfields, becomes the first state to want to adopt a ‘climate-friendly’ investment policy, following a decision of the state parliament in January.

The financial administration is now tasked with the development of new investment policies that are supposed to be fully implemented by 2018. The state pension funds will be merged into a new fund worth €10.3 billion.

Fossil Free and Greenpeace activists in Germany urge the local government association Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe in North Rhine Westphalia to divest from fossil fuels.

Fossil Free and Greenpeace activists in Germany urge the local government association Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe in North Rhine Westphalia to divest from fossil fuels.

 

Fossil Free Germany insists that ‘climate-friendly’ investments need to rule out any investments in the world’s biggest coal, oil and gas companies. We hope that North Rhine Westphalia will lead the way by becoming the first federal state to divest from fossil fuels and that many other states will follow.

The Greens who recently won the elections in Baden-Wuerttemberg promised in their election campaign to review the state’s investments and check how to pull out of any fossil fuel holdings, it may have.

 

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