Canada’s oil producers need to set clear targets to fight climate change to continue to attract global capital, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Wednesday, as the country’s carbon-intensive oil sands industry faces heightened environmental scrutiny from investors.
The comments come as Japan’s biggest bank by assets said it would restrict transactions involving oil sands, while Norway’s $1 trillion wealth fund blacklisted four of the industry’s biggest companies, according to Reuters.
“We’ve seen investors around the world looking at the risks associated with climate change as an integral part of investment decisions they make,” Trudeau told reporters, adding that many companies in the energy sector understood the investment climate is shifting.
“There is a need for clear leadership and clear targets to reach on fighting climate change to draw on global capital.”
Norway’s wealth fund said it would exclude Canadian Natural Resources , Cenovus Energy , Suncor Energy and Imperial Oil for producing excessive greenhouse gas emissions, the first time it has used that reason to blacklist firms.
The companies were excluded for “acts or omissions that on an aggregate company level lead to unacceptable greenhouse gas emissions”, it said.
Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group said on Wednesday it has put oil sands extraction and drilling for crude oil and gas in the Arctic on its “restricted transaction” list.
(Reuters)
