Meeting the goals set out in the Paris Climate Agreement is a race against time. And whether we succeed or fail is highly dependent on the speed with which we phase out coal-fired power production worldwide. According to the 2018 IPCC Report, coal-fired power generation needs to be reduced by 78% by 2030 in order to keep the 1.5°C goal within reach. The recent IEA Report "Net Zero by 2050" confirmed that no new coal power plants or coal mines should be developed.
Through its allocation of resources, the finance industry is in a unique position to help or hurt our climate. But financial institutions that want to move coal out of their portfolio, face a very practical hurdle: lack of information. This is where the Global Coal Exit List (GCEL) comes in.
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The GCEL was devised to help financial institutions navigate the complicated landscape of coal-based business models. Companies on the GCEL represent 90% of the world’s thermal coal production and the world’s coal-fired capacity. It offers key statistics on over 1,000 parent companies and over 1,800 subsidiaries operating along the thermal coal value chain.
Investors representing over US$ 16 trillion in assets are already applying one or more of the GCEL’s three divestment criteria to screen coal companies out of their portfolios. But unless more follow and do so quickly, we will fail the most basic of all climate tests: leaving coal behind.