"Asset Managers Prioritizing Profit over Climate Commitments: Study by Carbon Tracker"

2023-05-05 04:54:20

According to a report by Carbon Tracker, asset managers continue to invest heavily in the hydrocarbon sector, despite the impact of these energies on the climate.

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Published on 05/05/2023 06:54

Update on 05/05/2023 08:12

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The French Amundi, a subsidiary of the Crédit Agricole group, is one of the asset managers singled out by Carbon Tracker. (RICCARDO MILANI / HANS LUCAS / AFP)

Words, but no deeds. Asset managers around the world, such as the French Amundi, have investments worth more than 400 billion dollars in oil and gas producers, in contradiction with their displayed climate commitments, denounces the NGO Carbon Tracker in a study published Friday, May 5. Along with coal, another fossil fuel, oil and gas are the main cause of man-made global warming.

The authors analyzed the investments of financial firms which are among the shareholders of 15 large private companies in the hydrocarbons sector such as the British BP, the American ExxonMobil or the French TotalEnergies. None of these fossil fuel giants is “aligned” with an objective of limiting global warming to 1.5°C compared to the pre-industrial period, according to Carbon Tracker, which takes as a reference the most ambitious objective of the Paris agreement of 2015.

BlackRock and Amundi pinned

Among the managers, a number of American groups stand out for their large investments in oil and gas companies, such as the giant BlackRock (with an asset value in oil and gas of 116 billion in 2022). Others, like Amundi (12 billion), a subsidiary of Crédit Agricole, are also singled out.

The authors note that many of them have yet officially committed to the climate front, in particular by joining the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative (NZAM). The latter aims to “support the goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or earlier, in line with efforts to limit warming to 1.5°C”. It includes BlackRock, JPMorgan, UBS, Amundi, BNP Paribas and even Lazard.

Focusing on the managers who are members of this initiative, Carbon Tracker calculates that the value of their investments in the oil and gas sector is nearly $417 billion. This is the total for the 25 NZAM member financial groups most exposed to the hydrocarbons sector. Carbon Tracker notes that many of them have even increased between 2021 and 2022 their exposure to the fossil sector, whose profits have been inflated for more than a year by the war in Ukraine.