AXA To Divest Holdings In Coal Companies Over Climate Change

’s largest insurer will scrap holdings in coal companies because of concerns about climate change, broadening support for the fossil-fuel divestment movement to a major mainstream investor.

Axa SA Chief Executive Officer Henri de Castries said he’s working to sell 500 million euros ($559 million) of coal assets and triple “green investments” to 3 billion euros by 2020. He joined investors in Paris saying companies must act to contain global warming.

“There is one thing which is absolutely clear: If the warming goes beyond 2 degrees, it’s going to become tougher and tougher and probably impossible” for insurers to cope with damage to the environment, De Castries said in an interview on Bloomberg Television in Paris on Friday. “Insurers are the mirror of what happens in the economy and in the society. We try to increase what we do on the prevention side.”

The decision could bring to the market shares of some of the largest mining concerns. For environmental campaigners, it also adds a major traditional investor to the growing list divesting from fossil fuels. Axa had 925 billion euros ($1 trillion) under management at the end of last year, including money it oversees for third parties.

To date, the biggest names supporting the movement have been churches, universities and socially conscious funds such as the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation. Earlier this week, Oxford University joined Stanford in saying it would halt investments in coal. The Church of England also is reduced coal investments.

Stranded Assets

Their concern is that rising temperatures caused by burning fossil fuels makes holding shares of companies that produce oil, natural gas and coal more risky. The International Energy Agency says half of all known fossil-fuel reserves need to stay in the ground to prevent the planet from overheating.

“There is a legal risk that is coming,” Philippe Desfosses, chief executive officer of ERAFP, a pension fund for French civil servants, said at the climate event in Paris where the Axa CEO also appeared. “If there is a carbon risk for a business, how can CEOs of pension funds justify that they don’t give a damn and won’t mitigate it?”