Aberdeen Standard Investments, Legal & General and Robeco are among six firms joining the Powering Past Coal Alliance (PPCA), which encourages policymakers and businesses to phase out coal usage

Desjardisn group, Swiss Re and Church of England Pensions Board have also signed up to the Alliance joining 10 existing members including Aviva, AXA Investment Managers, Hermes Investment Management, Schroders and Storebrand.

The asset managers have signed the PPCA’s Finance Principles committed to end financing for coal-fired power.

Additionally, a new PPCA Finance Taskforce, which includes finance and government members and partners of the PPCA, will work jointly to cease new investments in coal-fired power, phase out existing coal capacity and boost investments in clean energy.

PPCA said more and more financial institutions recognise the business case for moving away from coal into renewable energy but a significant amount of investment, from private and public sources, is still being made in coal power plants around the world and the global coal fleet continues to grow.

As a result, the Taskforce members will engage with policy makers and businesses to promote the shift to clean energy. This will be done in partnership with existing initiatives such as Climate Action 100+.

Kwasi Kwarteng (pictured), UK Minister for Business, Energy and Clean Growth, said: “As holder of the COP26 Presidency, the UK is going further and faster on coal and our energy mix will be totally coal free by 2025. We are calling on our international partners to lay the foundations for a green, resilient global recovery from covid-19 and phasing out coal will be vital to that. I am delighted that even more world-leading financial institutions are joining the PPCA, demonstrating their commitment to the environment and to channelling investment away from coal-fired power into sustainable, green energy.”

Eva Cairns, senior ESG investment analyst – climate change at Aberdeen Standard Investments, said the group “fully supports” the goals of the Paris Agreement and believe that “unabated thermal coal for electricity production should be phased out urgently.”

“We have joined the PPCA to demonstrate our strong support for thermal coal phase out no later than 2030 in OECD countries and 2050 in the rest of the world. We will reflect this in our active engagements which we consider to be a powerful tool for influencing an effective and just energy transition.”

Martin Brookes, director of investment strategy at L&G, added: “L&G strongly supports the Paris Agreement and is committed to decarbonise the c£100bn assets on its balance sheet to align with no more than 1.5c of warming. The IPCC has shown that to deliver this, coal must be substantially removed from the global energy mix this decade. As part of our active engagement to deliver this objective we therefore support the work of PPCA in climate transition finance.”

The PPCA aims to double the number of major financial institutions among its members by next year’s COP26 in Glasgow, UK.