Movement to defund fossil fuels is coming for the private equity industry
CBSN
As Wall Street banks and investors face mounting pressure to disinvest in fossil fuels, the massive private equity industry is taking their place, according to climate activists. The eight largest buyout firms have put nearly as much money into coal, oil and gas as the big banks, according to a recent analysis from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project and Americans for Financial Reform Education Fund (AFREF).
The firms, which include Apollo Global Management, Blackstone Group, Brookfield Asset Management, Carlyle Group, KKR and Warbug Pincus, collectively oversee $216 billion worth of fossil-fuel assets — on par with how much money big banks put into fossil fuels last year, the nonprofit groups found. Looking at the 10 largest private equity funds, it found that 80% of their energy investments were in fossil fuels.
"The billions of dollars private equity firms have deployed to drill, frack, transport, store, refine fossil fuels and generate energy, stand in stark contrast to what climate scientists and international policymakers have called upon to align our trajectory to the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming scenario," states the report, which was cosigned by major climate groups including Greenpeace, Natural Resources Defense Project, Sierra Club and the Sunrise Project.
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