25 June 2021
Adani Group celebrates its undermining of the Paris Agreement on climate change, while three more investors reject its destructive activities.
The hypocrisy of the Adani Group was on full display this week, and nowhere was it more stark than big boss Gautam Adani’s Twitter feed. Directly above a World Environment Day tweet proclaiming “Clean, green, affordable energy is what our world, our nation and our next generation need” was the next tweet, celebrating the striking of the coal seam at Adani’s under-construction Carmichael thermal coal mine on his birthday. “Proud of my tenacious team who mined Carmichael’s ‘first coal’ in the face of heavy odds. There couldn’t be a better birthday gift…”
However, Adani Group’s push to expand coal use in the midst of the climate crisis and do business with Myanmar’s military is not without consequence, with three more investors declaring this week they had dumped their shares in Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (Adani Ports).
First, Norway’s biggest pension fund KLP, divested from Adani Ports due to its ongoing business ties with Myanmar’s military, which has overthrown a democratically elected government and killed hundreds of peaceful protestors. KLP’s statement included the shocking revelation that “Adani said it had made no due diligence assessments relating to human rights before the agreement it concluded with the Myanmar military“.
Second was US$91 billion investor Storebrand (article in Norwegian), which stated it had dumped its Adani Ports shares due to “our sustainability criteria related to coal, but also the fact that we have not received a satisfactory answer in our dialogue about the risk of contributions to human rights violations in Myanmar” (Google translation).
Rounding out the trio was Samsung Life Insurance (via subsidiary Samsung Asset Management). In an email to Market Forces and School Strike for Climate it stated, “Samsung Asset Management India Mutual Fund had sold Adani Ports shares due to recent market noise and share price volatility related to Adani Group’s coal project, therefore as of June 23, 2021 the fund no longer owns Adani Ports shares and has no plan to repurchase the shares. Overall, Samsung Asset Management clearly has no intention to support Adani’s coal project…”
…the fund no longer owns Adani Ports shares and has no plan to repurchase the shares. Overall, Samsung Asset Management clearly has no intention to support Adani’s coal project…
Email from Samsung, 23 June 2021
Adani has lost a lot of financiers, wasted a lot of money and destroyed its reputation in pursuing the Carmichael thermal coal project. It has only been able to get this far thanks to those that have remained in its corner. These include its insurance broker Marsh McLennan, the Lloyd’s of London insurance market, Siemens Mobility and a number of investors and bankers across the Adani Group including BlackRock, HSBC, Barclays, Standard Chartered, Credit Suisse and JP Morgan.
Adani Group grotesquely – and hypocritically – celebrating a step forward in its Carmichael project should shake any complacency from these remaining companies. Adani Group’s continued pursuit of Carmichael undermines global efforts to reduce emissions and delays India’s transition to cheaper and cleaner energy. Investors, bankers and insurers across the entire Adani Group must now distance themselves from this destructive company unless they want to be seen to be supporting the climate-wrecking Carmichael project.
Adani’s public relations stunts won’t stop communities from continuing to fight its climate-wrecking coal project. Carmichael has been delayed by seven years and is still a long way from completion, over one hundred companies have pledged to never support it and the economics of coal power keep getting worse. The idea that Adani will viably mine coal at Carmichael for decades to come is fanciful. It should walk away now, because the people determined to keep coal in the ground won’t.
Take action – contact Adani’s investors and bankers and ask them to cut ties.