KLP’s Grimsby: the energy transition won’t happen without the ‘carrot and stick’ approach

The net zero energy transition will not happen without a “carrot and stick” approach taken by government through policy and regulation, the climate change lead at Norway’s largest pension fund KLP has stressed.

At the Climate Investment Summit today (26 June), Gjermund Grimsby, chief advisor for climate change at KLP, which has $70bn of assets under management, stated that the energy transition will not go in the right direction without “huge” action by governments.

Speaking at the conference, which is taking place during London Climate Action Week, Grimsby said that government policy measures must address market failures, complimenting those already implemented such as EU carbon border taxes.

“Use carrots and sticks to make the transition”, Grimsby stated, referencing the common saying relating to the idea that if you want to motivate someone to do something then you give them a reward (carrot) or a punishment (stick).

Grimsby outlined several market failures being that innovators do not capture the full benefit of their ideas; the lack of sufficient electricity grids and that energy infrastructure is just based on fossil fuels.

“The most obvious one is the market failure related to less capacity in emerging economies, who have capital markets that are underdeveloped, which is really preventing a huge amount of capital to be invested in the transition,” Grimsby added.

‘Abundancy’ of renewable energy

He stated that a type of solution that worldwide governments should consider investing into is “abundancy of renewable energy”.

“Governments all over the world need to do this. That's the only way that we can stop fossil fuel investments is to make renewable energy really cheap,” he said.

However, when questioned whether KLP has a role to play in investing in renewables to make it affordable for the public, Grimbsy stated that despite the pension fund looking to finance “as much [climate] solutions as possible” this needs to be done within the fund’s risk limits and generate good returns.

“Throughout climate conferences, people say that going through the transition renewable energy will become cheap.

“As an investor, I’m thinking why am I going to invest in this? This is going to be free so I might not get my returns back, so that's why I think governments really play a huge role in doing these investments that project by project is not necessarily profitable, but for society as such, definitely,” he added.

Despite this, KLP has invested in various renewable energy projects, with the pension provider entering into a partnership at the end of 2022 to fund a solar plant project in India, taking a 49% stake in the plant.

The fund has also committed towards a NextEnergy Capital’s NextPower V ESG investment vehicle focused on solar and energy storage assets located in OECD countries  alongside two other European asset owners.

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