BNP - Investors Corner: Got to give it up! Divesting from fossil fuels ahead of COP 21 in Paris

The Danish government has set an ambitious target of weaning Denmark off fossil fuels by 2050. That may partly explain why in early March 2015, six Danish pension funds managing total assets of around EUR 32 billion presented a series of resolutions to their members proposing the exclusion of investments in the 100 largest coal companies by 2018. If passed, the resolutions will also require the pension funds to engage in and document a dialogue with the oil and gas companies in which they are invested so that these companies exclude from their investments high-risk extraction projects such as deep-water and Arctic drilling or tar sand extraction.