As Coal Demand Keeps Sliding, Investors Disagree on Oil’s Fate

When it comes to fossil fuels, California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones wants his industry to clean up its act. In January, Jones requested that insurers licensed to sell in California voluntarily divest from thermal coal. He also announced that as of April those companies — which collectively manage investments worth $7.5 trillion — must disclose their oil and gas holdings.

This move comes as coal’s fate as an attractive investment appears to be all but sealed, raising the question of whether oil and gas are next. “Policy changes and indicators in the markets themselves led me to conclude that coal in particular poses a financial risk to insurance companies, and that oil and gas pose enough of a risk to warrant new requirements with regard to financial disclosure,” Jones says.

He cites carbon emissions standards in various U.S. states, California’s cap-and-trade system and December’s21届联合国气候变化框架公约缔约方会议巴黎, where world leaders agreed to reduce emissions and keep the global average temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius.

In a February research note, Goldman Sachs Group analysts called the decline of the thermal coal industry “irreversible,” thanks to an ongoing plunge in demand for the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel. The analysts lowered their long-term price forecast for Australian Newcastle coal, which traded at $51 per metric ton as of February, to $42.50, down 15 percent from their previous estimate of $50 last September. Meanwhile, the Market Vectors Coal ETF keeps sinking: In early March it was trading in the $7.25 range, having plummeted almost 90 percent since June 2008.

随着石油价格也坦克 - 布伦特原油于3月初左右是36美元，而2014年6月则为112美元 - 一些投资者正在将坍落度视为买入机会。基于纽约的全球商品和实际资产的Jodie Gunzberg表示，S＆P道琼斯指数表示，她的许多投资者客户已经分配给石油专业，期望反弹。

但其他投资者担心石油和天然气面临与煤炭相同的威胁：全球需求的永久性下降，拼写废墟，不再重塑业务模式。

“被要求投资者进行审判，”碳追踪倡议的创始人和执行董事Mark Campanale表示，伦敦的非营利组织，旨在调动资本市场来战斗气候变化. “Do they back what governments are saying, that we’re going to have to put in place a regime to control emissions and get the use of fossil fuels down by 30 percent, or do they believe the companies, who want to increase the supply by 20 to 30 percent? That is the fundamental dilemma that investors face.”

Some asset owners are trying to confront that dilemma by taking both extremes into account — and pressuring the oil and gas industry to prepare for a world that governments claim will be less dependent on carbon. The $180 billionNew York State Common Retirement Fundand the £6.7 billion ($9.35 billion) investment fund overseen by the Church of England have opted for shareholder engagement. Both players hope they can help to persuade the oil and gas majors in their portfolios to adapt to a lower-carbon world by doing things like investing more in renewable energy.

在过去的五年中，公司治理计划监督New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapolihas filed 41 shareholder proposals calling on portfolio companies — most of them in the energy sector — to assess their climate change risks and their strategies for confronting those risks. As of last September, New York State Common had 2.12 percent of its total holdings in members of the碳地下200, an annual ranking of the top 100 public coal companies and the top 100 public oil and gas companies by potential carbon emissions from their reported reserves.

为了应对英格兰教会的股东压力等，BP和荷兰皇家壳牌同意公开描述政府对排放的裁定方式会影响它们。But engagement can face roadblocks: After New York State Common and the Church of England filed a resolution in December asking Exxon Mobil Corp. to publish annual assessments of the long-term impact of climate change policies on its business, the U.S. oil giant requested that the Securities and Exchange Commission throw out the proposal, calling it “vague and misleading.” As of early March a decision from the SEC was still pending.

Patrick Doherty, director of corporate governance at the New York State Comptroller’s office, hopes that such pushback will fade. “Companies see the writing on the wall; they see that governments are beginning to take this very seriously indeed,” Doherty says, pointing to businesses in New York State Common’s portfolio: “A number of them are beginning to take steps that they had been resisting for some years.”