Groups to exit coal, tar dealings

Pledges precede climate summit

A foundation tied to the Rockefeller family, heirs to the Standard Oil Co. fortune, announced Monday that it's joining other groups in exiting coal and tar sands investments.

Mars Inc. and 11 other companies unveiled plans to phase out fossil-fuel use. And Statoil ASA and five other oil and gas companies are set to pledge to plug methane leaks.

The announcements may be the most tangible actions taken on global warming this week as President Barack Obama and more than 100 other world leaders meet in a summit devoted to climate change.

"The leadership from companies has been remarkable and welcome," Carter Roberts, the president of the World Wildlife Fund in Washington, said in an interview. "You will see a swirl of commitments."

The United Nations Climate Summit runs all day today at the United Nations in New York, just before the annual meeting of the General Assembly. After the estimated 125 leaders speak, limited to four minutes each, specific pledges from companies will be discussed at an afternoon session Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is hosting with executives from companies such as Air France-KLM, Siemens AG, Royal Dutch Shell PLC and McDonald's Corp., as well as author Naomi Klein and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

Companies not participating also will feel heat: The Rockefeller Brothers Fund is now one of 180 institutions and local governments and 654 individuals who have so far pledged to cut investments in 200 coal, oil and gas producers from their asset holdings. Total divested funds are $50 billion, as commitments to sell have doubled so far this year, according to Arabella Advisors, which works with philanthropic groups on their investments.

With the Rockefeller Brothers Fund -- managing assets of about $860 million -- set to pull out of coal and oil sands and looking at phasing out investments in oil and natural gas, the effort will get a symbolic boost.

"It's not a huge economic lever, but it does begin to send financial signals and it brings visibility to the issue," Stephen Heintz, president of the fund that is separate from the larger Rockefeller Foundation, said in an interview. "This is like a snowball, and it's going to get more and more mass as it rolls forward."

The aim of the summit, Ban said, is to gather momentum for climate negotiations that are set to conclude at a meeting in Paris in December. The goal is to scale back the release of carbon dioxide and other warming gases so that average global temperatures don't rise more than 2 degrees Celsius.

In a report Monday, scientists said carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuel are set to rise 2.5 percent this year to a record 40 billion tons.

"I'm really going to ask world leaders to show their political will and give a clear guidance and directions" to negotiators, Ban said in an interview Thursday. "I count on the U.S. and China, who are the biggest greenhouse-emitting countries" to "lead this campaign."

Ban was among 310,000 who took to the streets of Manhattan on Sunday to press for action in what organizers called the largest social demonstration in the city in a decade. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who also marched, announced a plan to cut the city's emissions 80 percent by 2050.

"Since the fossil fuel companies have money, we have to have something on our side, and that's people," said Bill McKibben, the head of 350.org, the organizing group.

Business on 09/23/2014

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