Coal feels the heat

About US$8 trillion of known coal reserves lie beneath the earth's surface. The companies planning to mine and burn them are being targeted by the growing ranks of investors concerned with the greenhouse gases that will be made.

Storebrand ASA, which manages US$74 billion of assets from Norway, sold out of 24 coal and oil-sands companies between July and November including Peabody Energy, the largest US coal producer, citing a desire to cut fossil-fuel industry holdings.

Norway's opposition Labour Party has proposed banning the country's US$800 billion sovereign wealth fund from making coal investments.

"Maybe we've hit some kind of nerve in the debate," said Christine Torklep Meisingset, Storebrand's head of sustainable investments in Oslo. "Hopefully, other investors will be acting along the same lines. There could be an interesting parallel to tobacco."

The movement is an offshoot of a campaign by more than 70 investors to pressure all fossil-fuel industries on climate change.

It harks to the 1990s anti-tobacco push and is gaining help from unlikely partners. The International Energy Agency, a 28-nation group promoting energy security, is lobbying increasingly to limit the release of heat-trapping gases.