Norway’s newly elected government is considering establishing a mandate for the country’s $750 billion sovereign wealth fund to invest in renewable energy and infrastructure.
The environmental group WWF called the move an ‘unprecedented shift’ for investments in renewable energy if done at scale and is pushing Norway to invest 5% of its portfolio in renewable energy and to end its investment in coal and tar sands.
Norway’s new government vowed to cut income taxes, sell state assets and establish a 100 billion-krone ($17 billion) fund to aid the construction of roads and other infrastructure in western Europe’s largest oil producer. So reports Bloomberg.
The government said it will also evaluate developing the fund’s investment strategy and promote more investments in the developing world and renewable energy around the world, according to the platform. It will also seek to increase use of Norway’s natural gas domestically, it said. The Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) is the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund and now holds on average about 1.2 percent of the world’s listed companies and invests abroad to avoid stoking domestic inflation.
To read the Bloomberg articles cited in this story, click here and click here
To read the press release by the WWF, click here