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Despite climate change: federal and state governments are investing heavily in fossil stocks

2020-09-21T05:19:59.248Z


Get out of the coal - that is the motto for more and more investors. But new data show that the federal and state governments are investing a lot of money in fossil fuels.


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RWE lignite power plant in Niederaußem (archive image)

Photo: Oliver Berg / picture alliance / dpa

The state should always be a role model - in dealing with its employees, in payment behavior or in the conduct of management staff.

In his investments, however, he does not live up to this role model function in Germany.

This is the result of an investigation into the shareholdings of the federal and state governments, which the Fossil Free Berlin initiative published this Monday.

Conclusion: "State share portfolios, in which around 1700 companies were at the end of 2018, are far from complying with the Paris Climate Agreement with upper temperature limits of 1.5 to 2.0 ° C."

The Fossil-Free campaign is committed to completely stopping investments in fossil fuels.

To search for such investments, the activists searched through information from small inquiries on the one hand and made inquiries themselves to the state and federal ministries on the other.

In total, they came across around 13.2 billion euros from civil service pension funds that were invested on the stock exchange.

Almost 6.2 billion euros went to the federal government, which also invests in shares for long-term care insurance.

According to the authors, the federal government alone put around 800 million euros in fossil stocks.

These included energy companies such as Exxon, Total, ENI or RWE, which earn money with coal, gas and oil.

With the help of an analysis model, Fossil Free then simulated how high global warming would be by 2050 if the companies in the state depots maintained their previous emissions of greenhouse gases and their composition corresponded to the global economy.

So-called sector limit values, which the International Energy Agency has defined for various industries, were also taken into account.

The result: Instead of the two-degree target agreed in the Paris climate agreement, the warming with the current investment mix of the German state should be four degrees.

"They glow and burn, the stock portfolios of Olaf Scholz and the other finance ministers," says Matthias von Gemmingen from Fossil Free Berlin.

"These types of stock exchange transactions are incompatible with the Paris Climate Agreement."

Bavaria is at the bottom

The worst performers in the simulation were Baden-Württemberg, North Rhine-Westphalia and, at the bottom, Bavaria, whose depots were at least 30 percent "too hot".

According to their own statements, seven federal states hold no shares, Brandenburg and Saarland did not provide any information.

The federal government was also 18 percent above the limit for "Paris-compatible finances".

None of the depots examined achieved this seal of approval - not even Berlin and Schleswig-Holstein.

Both federal states have already reallocated their shares and are now investing via the "Benexx" eco-index initiated by Berlin.

Although this no longer contains fossil fuels, other companies also produce CO2 emissions - such as steel or cement manufacturers.

After all: With their new mix of stocks, Berlin and Schleswig-Holstein were only eleven percent above the limit values ​​and thus performed best among the countries examined.

In addition, according to the report, they are more profitable than the benchmark index EuroStoxx 50, while federal stocks merely stagnated.

This shows that investments in fossil fuels are also financially risky - a key argument of the so-called divestment movement.

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Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2020-09-21

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