Climate Investment Newsletter 9/12 - 9/18

Individual Deals and Market Watch

Investors with $39 tln urge govts to plan fossil fuel phase out [Reuters]

• The move by some - but not all - top fund firms comes ahead of the next round of global climate talks in Egypt in November. This year's letter is the most ambitious appeal to officials yet, backers of the effort said, with additional requests for action on tackling methane pollution and scaling up finance to poorer countries.

EU expects to raise €140bn from windfall tax on energy firms [The Guardian]

• “The era of cheap fossil fuels is over. And the faster we move to cheap, clean and homegrown renewables, the sooner we will be immune to Russia’s energy blackmail,” he said.

NZ Super Fund shifts $25 billion to low carbon indices in sustainability push [NZ Super Fund]

• The NZ Super Fund has shifted about 40% of its overall investment portfolio to market indices that align with the Paris Agreement, the international climate change treaty.
• The changes apply to the Fund’s index-tracking Reference Portfolio benchmark and its corresponding $25 billion of passive investments in global equities.

USDA makes historic $2.8 billion investment in agricultural climate solutions [EDF]

• The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Partnerships for Climate-Smart Commodities program awarded $2.8 billion in funding to pilot projects that develop and expand markets for crops and livestock farmed in ways that reduce greenhouse gas emissions or sequester carbon.

North Rhine-Westphalia to back Thyssenkrupp's EUR-2bn low-carbon steel project [Renewables Now]

• North Rhine-Westphalia will provide a mid-triple digit million amount to German industrial conglomerate Thyssenkrupp AG (ETR:TKA) to co-finance its project for the construction of a direct reduction (DR) plant for low-carbon steel in Duisburg.

TeraWatt Infrastructure charges up with $1B-plus raise [Crunchbase News]

• San Francisco-based charging startup TeraWatt Infrastructure locked down a Series A of more than $1 billion.
• The investment came from funds managed by Vision Ridge Partners and existing investors Keyframe Capital and Cyrus Capital. The company says it had previously raised a $100 million seed round.

Food service giant Compass Group issues more than £680m of sustainable bonds [Edie]

• The world’s largest food services company has successfully issued its first two sustainability-linked bonds, collectively raising more than £680m to support social and environmental actions.

Union Pacific issues $600 million in green bonds [Progressive Rail Roading]

• Union Pacific Corp. announced it issued a $600 million green bond offering to fund investments aimed at decarbonizing the company's footprint and achieving set emissions-reduction targets.

PowerPlant Partners raises $330 million to focus on growth-stage eco companies [Green Queen]

• With its recent $330 million raise, PowerPlant Partners’ third fund, the PPV Fund III, will shift to focus solely on growth-stage vegan companies.

Sense adds to series C, totaling $127.6 million, with Volery Capital Investing [Cision]

• Sense, the leader in real-time home energy intelligence, announced the close of $127.6 million in Series C financing with Volery Capital Partners joining Blue Earth Capital, TELUS Ventures, MCJ Collective, Schneider Electric, Energy Impact Partners, Prelude Ventures, iRobot and others.

Patagonia’s next chapter: Earth is now our only shareholder [Patagonia Works]

• Each year, profits that are not reinvested back into the business will be distributed by Patagonia as a dividend to the Holdfast Collective to help fight the climate crisis. The company projects that it will pay out an annual dividend of roughly $100 million, depending on the health of the business.

Macro Commitments

Samsung to invest $5 billion under plan to tame emissions [Bloomberg]

• Chip giant aims to zero out direct emissions, add clean power
• Samsung’s slow climate response has been under global scrutiny

Belgium to raise €4.5 billion with second issue of green bonds [The Brussels Times]

• Belgium will raise €4.5 billion through its second green bond (Green OLO) issue, according to a communication from the Debt Agency.

Biden announces $900M to build EV charging stations [Tech Crunch]

• Around $5 billion has been set aside by Congress to be doled out to states over the next five years for an EV charging network across the country. Biden has set a goal to make up to 50% of all vehicles sold in the U.S. electric by 2030.

APG, Microsoft invest in €390m climate tech fund [Environmental Finance]

• Energy Impact Partners (EIP) has launched a €390 million ($391 million) European fund with support from impact and institutional investors, including Microsoft, Shell Ventures, APG and the Norwegian Ministry of Trade.

New European impact fund Junction to invest €100 million in green energy startups [EU Startups]

• Aiming to play a defining role in Europe’s energy transition, a new impact-driven venture has been launched: Junction. The fund is planning to invest a total of €100 million into green energy tech startups across Europe and has just closed an initial pot of €75 million.

Pathways, Frameworks, Case Studies, Research, Climate Science

Study: Clean energy transition will generate $12tr in savings [Business Green]

Climate change: China’s cost for urban flooding could jump six-fold to US$477 billion a year, says Morgan Stanley [SCMP]

• Urban flood damage could cost China US$77 billion in 2030 and more than six times that in 2080 due to climate change, Morgan Stanley analysts say
• Investors have not priced in these risks sufficiently, with only a fraction of companies reporting climate risks and opportunities

Southeast Asia needs $210 bln annual investment on renewables -IRENA [Reuters]

• Southeast Asian nations need to more than double their annual investment on renewables to accelerate energy transition and to meet climate goals, a report released by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) showed.

Africa losing up to 15% of GDP growth to climate change, African Development Bank says [Reuters]

• Africa is losing 5% to 15% of its per capita economic growth due the effects of climate change and is facing a gaping climate finance shortfall, according to the African Development Bank (AfDB).

Colbun withdraws EIS for USD-570m wind project in Chile [Renewables Now]

• Chilean power utility Colbun SA has withdrawn the environmental impact study (EIS) for its 472.5-MW Junquillos wind farm project in Chile just days after the document was admitted for evaluation.

Chemicals sector could create 29 million jobs in net-zero transition, report finds [Edie]

• The ‘Planet-Positive Chemicals’ report highlights how, at present, the sector is operating in line with a climate trajectory of up to 4C of warming by 2100 on pre-industrial levels. This is far from compatible with the Paris Agreement. Less than one in five large chemistry firms have set science-based climate targets and almost all of the feedstocks used by the sector – 98% – were fossil-fuel-based in 2021, the report states. This proportion would need to drop to 18% by 2050 in a net-zero scenario according to the report.

TCFD adoption by exchanges surges [Environmental Finance]

• The adoption by global exchanges of Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations jumped in 2022, according to a survey by the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE).