The Financial Times reported this week that Norway’s oil fund wants companies to be allowed to water down their climate goals, arguing the alternative was for a major net zero initiative to fall apart. “The $2tn oil fund told the FT it feared companies could back away from the idea of science-backed climate targets unless they were allowed to emit more greenhouse gases while still claiming to be working towards those goals. The fund last month pushed the global corporate climate standard-setting body, the Science Based Targets initiative, to relax its guardrails. . . . The fund said companies should be given leeway to target net zero by 2050 based on emission cuts equating to up to 2C of warming on a global scale, rather than 1.5C. This translates to shallower or slower cuts to greenhouse gases in key industries, from grids to transport, in coming years.” However, “Amy Owens, a financial policy analyst at the think-tank Carbon Tracker, said the oil fund’s push to water down rules was at odds with growing climate risks to its own holdings. The change risked triggering a “domino effect” on other climate standards.”
The Gates Foundation Trust holds hundreds of millions of dollars in fossil fuel extractors despite Bill Gates’ claims of divestment made in 2019, the Guardian reported this week. “End-of-year filings reveal that in 2024 the trust invested $254m in companies that extract fossil fuels such as Chevron, BP and Shell. This was a nine-year record and up 21% from 2016, Guardian analysis found. Adjusting for inflation, it was the highest amount since 2019.” The article recalls that in his 2021 book on climate, Gates looked back at 2019 and said he felt a personal, rather than financial, desire not to own stocks in fossil fuel companies. “I don’t want to profit if their stock prices go up because we don’t develop zero-carbon alternatives,” he wrote. “I’d feel bad if I benefited from a delay in getting to zero. So in 2019 I divested all my direct holdings in oil and gas companies, as did the trust that manages the Gates Foundation’s endowment.” He must feel really bad these days.
The Financial Times reported EU green rules are failing to boost the ESG credentials of funds. “Academics from Stanford, Harvard and Amsterdam universities and London Business School found the EU legislation, introduced in 2021 to encourage sustainable investment, had not meaningfully improved funds’ green credentials in terms of carbon emissions or on other measures, nor had it boosted fund flows to green funds. The findings are likely to strengthen the view of some critics that the investment industry is unable to significantly help combat climate change and is instead engaging in so-called greenwashing to present itself as more environmentally friendly than it really is.” This is really important and it would be good if an EiD follower could shed more light on this.
In a TEDxLausanne talk, Yamina Saheb, a long-time friend of EiD, lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and CEO of the World Sufficiency Lab, reframes climate change as a question of responsibility, fairness, and moral choice.
With so many excellent events related to sustainable energy coming soon, check out our latest list in a post this week. If you know of an upcoming event that EiD readers should know about, please contact us.
In planning travel over the upcoming weeks, here are some useful ideas to help you along:
- The Man in Seat Sixty-One explains how to travel comfortably & affordably by train or ferry, rediscovering the pleasure, romance & adventure of the journey.
- Check out the Good Night Train website for the unique way to travel through Europe while you sleep. See EiD’s recent post on why Europe’s night-train renaissance has derailed.
- World Walks provides us with walking holidays in Europe.
- For those who want to combine hiking with food and wine in Europe and Australia, check out the Hedonistic Hiking website. Watch their slide presentation for available tours in 2026.
- Cycling for Softies provides us with the 15 best cycling holidays in Europe in 2026.
Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986), a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist, gives us an important lesson on the value of life: “One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion.”
EiD welcomes your views about this week’s selection of posts on the zero-carbon energy transition:
- Upcoming events
- The new war on climate: Trump’s scorched-earth strategy
- While AI uses a lot of energy, it can also make systems cleaner and smarter
- Industrial heating practices in UK manufacturing: survey results
- New report examines sentiments from over 3,500 global professionals in the commercial real estate and construction sectors
- New European Investment Bank report – Bridging opportunity gaps: EIB Group investments in education, health and housing
- Decarbonising home heating: UK bets £15bn on solar and heat pumps
- What happens when we stop putting a price on clean air?
- Cold as a weapon: why Russia is targeting Ukraine’s heating system
Please send your comments on any of the posts. Please recommend EiD to your friends and colleagues.
If you know anyone who would like to receive this weekly notice, please invite them to were contact EiD at energyindemand@gmail.com. It is not available on the WordPress website.
Energy in Demand - Sustainable Energy - Rod Janssen 