Net Zero Investor 5/29 - 6/4

We’re Hiring Head of Climate Funds Research and Evaluation

• Build and maintain the definitive digital resource on funds, vehicles, large projects, prizes and incubators that are investing (or driving investment) in climate solutions aligned to science-based roadmaps to net zero.
• With a greater than $2T annual capital gap, and financial institutions with over $70T AUM making commitments to climate, this is the moment to assure capital flows with strategic focus and speed to the climate solutions that will drive net zero outcomes. C4C’s Head of Climate Funds position is an exceptional opportunity to help guide and mobilize billions toward actionable and impactful climate solutions.

Individual Deals and Market Watch

RWE trio among picks in EUR-8bn German hydrogen support process [Renewables Now]

• The German government has selected 62 projects in a process to disburse over EUR 8 billion (USD 9.76bn) in funding under the Important Project of Common European Interest (IPCEI) programme targeting hydrogen developments.

RWE issues EUR-500m green bond to fund renewables projects [Renewables Now]

• The company is looking to expand its wind and solar portfolio to more than 13 GW of net capacity (13,000MW) by the end of 2022 and currently has 3.7 GW of projects under construction.

Singapore-based utilities group Sembcorp prices SGD-400m maiden green bond [Renewables Now]

• The 2.45% green bonds, due 2031, were mainly placed to institutional investors chiefly in the Asia-Pacific, with some participation from Europe.

Bank of Finland invests $300m in Bank for International Settlements green bond fund [Responsible Investor]

Norway's largest pension company to make $245 mln 'dark green' investment [Reuters]

• The deal involves Norway's largest pension company KLP teaming up with Macquarie Asset Management to identify loans linked to solar, wind, hydro, sustainable energy storage and other projects aligned with the European Union's sustainable finance taxonomy, which defines environmentally friendly activities.
• In 2020, KLP invested 8.8 billion Norwegian crowns ($1.1 billion) in "climate-friendly" investments, and aims to plough at least 600 million euros into such investments every year.

BP puts $220M toward U.S. solar projects [The Hill]

• The projects it purchased will be spread across 12 states, with much of it going to power Texas and the Midwest.

Fred. Olsen Windcarriers reports EUR 124m of turbine T&I contracts [Renewables Now]

• Fred. Olsen Windcarrier AS (FOWIC), which is part of the wind service division of Norwegian group Bonheur ASA (OSL:BON), said in a statement that the new contracts concern work in the period 2022-2024 in both Europe and the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. All three contracts come from existing customers.

Cloudberry Clean Energy raises USD 129m in upsized private placement [Renewables Now]

• Nordic renewable energy company Cloudberry Clean Energy ASA has secured NOK 1.075 billion (USD 129m/EUR 106m) in gross proceeds through an upsized private placement, it announced on Tuesday June 1st.  Use of proceeds: wind projects and acquisition finance.

The Rise Fund announces $100 million strategic investment in Climavision [Business Wire]

• The Rise Fund, TPG’s global impact investing platform, today announced a $100 million strategic investment in Climavision, a pioneering weather services and intelligence platform powered by a private network of high-resolution radars, GPS-RO data, and proprietary software to vastly improve the timing and accuracy of weather forecasting and to fill low-level gaps in existing weather surveillance.

Electric-truck maker Rivian selects underwriters for IPO [Bloomberg]

• With a potential IPO later this year, Rivian is working with advisers including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Morgan Stanley, said the people, who asked to not be identified. Rivian could seek a value of about $70 billion. Bloomberg News previously reported it could seek a valuation of about $50 billion.
• C4C temperature check: Ford’s F-Series gasoline truck has been America’s best-selling truck for 44 years and the company is charging into the future with the electric F-150 Lightning. Ford’s market cap of $61.5 billion should put Rivian’s desired valuation into context.

Ford's electric Mustang tops Norway car sales in May [Reuters]

• Battery electric vehicles made up 60.4% of all new cars sold in Norway last month, the Norwegian Road Federation (OFV) said, up from 43.1% a year ago as the country seeks to become the first to end the sale of petrol and diesel engines by 2025.

Macro Commitments

Ørsted plans USD 57bn in 2020-2027 investments, mostly in offshore wind [Renewables Now]

• Denmark’s Ørsted A/S (CPH:ORSTED) plans to invest about DKK 350 billion (USD 57.3bn/EUR 47bn) in green energy in the period 2020-2027 and some 80% of that will be spent on offshore wind, including green hydrogen.

Biden's budget proposes USD 36bn for tackling climate change [Renewables Now]

• The funding would include more than USD 10 billion, a rise of almost 30% from 2021, for clean energy innovation across non-defense agencies.
• The budget also proposes USD 4 billion for climate change research and USD 7 billion for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The European Commission and Microsoft founder Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Catalyst are to mobilize $1 billion between 2022-2026 [S&P Global]

• The program of grants and funds is to focus on four sectors: green hydrogen; sustainable aviation fuels; direct air capture, and long duration energy storage.

Canada kicks off USD-800m renewables, grid support programme [Renewables Now]

• The Smart Renewables and Electrification Pathways Program (SREPs) will grant direct financial support to eligible projects among established renewables, emerging technologies and grid modernisation schemes.

Congo agrees $100 mln solar-hybrid power deal for three cities [Reuters]

• Democratic Republic of Congo on Thursday, June 3rd, signed a $100 million solar-hybrid power deal with a consortium led by Gridworks, to provide electricity to half a million people across three cities that have no grid connection.
• Gridworks is a development and investment platform principally targeting equity investments in transmission, distribution and off-grid electricity in Africa. They are owned and financed by the British development finance institution CDC Group, and includes French utility company Eranove and Spanish power developer AEE Power. Gridworks is backed by an initial commitment of $325 million from CDC Group and the support of the UK Government.

Pathways, Frameworks, Case Studies, Research, Climate Science

New initiative launched to improve and scale business investments in climate solutions [Cision]

• The Business Alliance for Scaling Climate Solutions (BASCS) launches ahead of World Environment Day and the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration to increase the scale and impact of business investment in climate solutions, a critical component for meeting the ambition of the Paris Agreement. Founders include Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Netfix, EDF, BSR, Disney, Salesforce, UNEP, Workaday.  

TNFD launches with announcement of co-chairs and proposed technical scope [Responsible Investor]

• The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) has officially launched June 4th. Styled on the Financial Stability Board’s Taskforce on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures and catalysed by UNEP FI, UNDP, Global Canopy, and WWF, the TNFD was first announced in July last year and is tasked with developing a framework for companies and financial institutions to assess, manage, and report on their dependencies and impacts on nature for 2023.

World must rewild on massive scale to heal nature and climate, says UN [The Guardian]

• The world must rewild and restore an area the size of China to meet commitments on nature and the climate, says the UN, and the revival of ecosystems must be met with all the ambition of the space race.  UNEP and FAO are calling for a commitment to restore a billion hectares of land, or 2.47 billion acres, or an area bigger than all contiguous US States.

New report gives insight into ‘blind spots’ of climate finance [Investor Daily]

• The investment arm of Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS), ISS ESG, has released its Seeing Past the Blind Spots in Climate Finance report that looks at three “critical” areas – “the consequences of a world shifting from mitigating climate change to adapting to it, the meaning of a true Net Zero transition and legal and other issues surrounding companies viewed as obstructing climate protection”.
• From the executive summary: “Net Zero commitments are spreading like wildfire, but not many investors are acknowledging the reality that Net Zero targets require not just offsets, but genuine atmospheric carbon reductions”.  

Half a million new workers needed to meet global wind demand by 2025 – report [Energy Monitor]

• The wind industry will need to train over 480,000 people in the next five years, in line with Global Wind Organisation (GWO) standards, to meet worldwide demand for such power safely, states a report from the GWO and the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).

Spain's renewables hit 50.7% share in May as solar PV breaks record [Renewables Now]

• Renewables produced 50.7% of Spain’s electricity in May, generating 10% more “green gigawatt-hours” compared to the same period a year ago, according to the latest estimates released Wednesday by Spanish grid operator Red Electrica de Espana (REE).

CEOs of 6 US banks testify before Congress [Nation of Change]

• Despite talk of an energy transition and a wave of fossil fuel bankruptcies, big bank CEOs described plans to continue business with beleaguered fossil fuel industries.

Six global banks join forces to decarbonize steel [Climate Action]

• Several top lenders to the steel sector—Citi, Goldman Sachs, ING, Societe Generale, Standard Chartered, and UniCredit—have come together to define common standards of action for steel sector decarbonization through a collective climate-aligned finance agreement facilitated the RMI’s Center for Climate Aligned Finance.  
• C4C Note: The agreement would create a level playing field for measuring progress against climate targets as well as a platform for proactively supporting the decarbonization of the sector.

EU eyes first-of-a-kind border levy in climate fight [Bloomberg Green]

• The European Union has proposed to slap a climate import levy on steel, cement and aluminum produced in countries with lower environmental and carbon emissions standards, as it seeks to become a world leader on climate without harming domestic producers.
• Importers would have to buy special certificates at a price linked to the EU Emissions Trading System

Climate crisis is suffocating the world’s lakes, study finds [The Guardian]

• Falling levels of oxygen in oceans had already been identified, but new research shows that the decline in lakes has been between three and nine times faster in the past 40 years. Scientists found oxygen levels had fallen by 19% in deep waters and 5% at the surface.

Keeping it real, CO2 levels just reached a 4 million year high [Bloomberg Green]

• No sugar coating it people, we are still on track to catastrophic warming despite the $70 trillion committed to doing climate something...