Asset managers around the world, such as the French Amundi, have investments worth more than 400 billion dollars in hydrocarbon producers, in contradiction with their stated climate commitments, denounces the NGO Carbon Tracker in a study published on Friday. 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 are “aligned” with a goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial times, according to Carbon Tracker, which takes as its benchmark the world’s most ambitious goal. Paris Agreement of 2015. 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 the French Amundi (12 billion) are also pinned down.
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 objective of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or before, in line with efforts to limit global 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.
Managers who are members of the NZAM initiative “signal to the market that they will invest in line with the Paris agreement objective of limiting global warming to 1.5°C”, notes Maeve O’Connor, author of the report. . But “if they invest in companies in the oil and gas sector that are not aligned with this objective, they risk their reputation with the owners of the assets who care about the climate issue”, she warns. “Other investors may also be concerned about their exposure to the risks associated with the energy transition,” she adds, as some fossil assets risk losing their value with the rise of other forms of cleaner energy. .
