BlackRock promises climate action, but Extinction Rebellion demands more - as it happened
Asset management giant promises to put environmental issues at the heart of its investment strategy, following pressure from climate protesters
- Latest: Extinction Rebellion says BlackRock's not doing enough
- BREAKING: BlackRock pledges to fight on climate issues
- Fink: We'll quit (some) thermal coal producers
- BlackRock's new plan
- BlackRock threatens to vote out bosses who neglect sustainability
4.19pm GMT
Finally, here's Associated Press's take on the BlackRock move:
BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, will make climate change central to its investment decisions.
Founder and CEO Laurence Fink, who oversees the management of about $7 trillion in funds, said in his influential annual letter to CEOs Tuesday that he believes we are on the edge of a fundamental reshaping of finance because of a warming planet.
3.01pm GMT
If BlackRock really wants to make a difference on the climate emergency, it needs to pile more pressure onto the companies it invests in.
That means voting in favour of climate-friendly motions at AGMs, and voting against directors who don't take the problem seriously enough.
Fink's most eye-catching shift is to change how BlackRock plans to engage with the companies it invests in, whether active or passive. From now on, it will be "increasingly disposed" to vote against directors at companies that are not doing enough. That includes those like Exxon Mobil which lobbyist CDP argues have been slow to explain how their balance sheets would be affected by higher temperatures.
BlackRock itself is evidence of what such a change can achieve. Fink's greater focus on climate change owes much to the firm's own clients - such as Japan's huge Government Pension Investment Fund - shoving it in this direction. If Fink is serious about applying the same pressure on the companies BlackRock invests in, his 2020 letter may be seen as a watershed.
Breakingviews - Larry Fink slowly becomes part of climate solution https://t.co/J7Z729rj3U
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