Global investors with more than $3 trillion under management have asked 45 companies - including BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, BP and Xstrata - to explain how they are planning for an 80% reduction in fossil fuel emissions by 2050.
Activist Bill McKibben had some useful messages for institutional investors at a Sydney meeting, according to the Investor Group on Climate Change, while Greens Leader Christine Milne says it's time for the Future Fund to exit fossil fuels.
New reports from an Australian group representing funds that manage more than $900 billion warn oil and gas reserves might have to remain unexploited and urge investors to seek climate change risk assessments from owners of large mines.
A company will be allowed to seek approval for a full-scale oil shale plant at Gladstone, paving the way for development of massive reserves along the state's coast and prompting warnings from the Greens and environment groups.
Institutional investors are using tools such as portfolio carbon footprinting, shareholder resolutions and adaptation strategies to manage climate change risk, according to a new survey of their practices in Europe, the US and Australia.
Australian and international investor groups have demanded that oil and gas companies demonstrate that they are effectively controlling fugitive methane emissions, and they want intensive gas users to exert pressure as well.
Focusing only on lowest-cost action will fail to prevent runaway climate change, says a global report commissioned by WWF Australia and reviewed by author of the renowned 2004 'wedges' climate change scenario, Princeton University's Robert Socolow.
Plans for a protest at Victoria's coal-fired Hazelwood power station have prompted State shadow attorney-general Robert Clark to call for urgent action to protect Victoria's coal-fired generators from disruption.