ActionAid Denmark has criticised 16 Danish pension funds for "failing the climate" by having €3.35bn (DKK 25bn) invested in fossil fuel producers.

In a new report, called The climate failure of the Danish pension sector, the campaign group claimed that two pension funds accounted for 42 per cent of the Danish pension sector's fossil fuel investments, while at the other end of the scale two other pension funds only accounted for 1.3 per cent.

ActionAid Denmark general secretary, Tim Whyte, called on the pension funds to "immediately withdraw their money" from the investments, saying that they are in direct contradiction with conclusions reached by the UN climate panel and the International Energy Agency, that the global CO2 budget does not leave room for new oil and gas investment, and that the use of coal must be phased out as soon as possible.

Whyte has also singled out Danish pension funds for investing €340m (DKK 2.54bn) in the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, which is being run by Uganda and Tanzania in cooperation with French oil giant Total and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation.

ActionAid Denmark claimed the project will emit the equivalent of almost nine years' worth of Danish CO2 emissions and will displace 100,000 people. As a result, Whyte said the pension funds were co-financing "one of the world's most controversial fossil projects".

Speaking about the report in general, Whyte says he hoped it will help influence Danish pension customers to take "an active position on their pension fund's climate behaviour".

"We encourage all pension customers to write to their pension fund and demand that it drop fossil investments, as well as to take up with the management at their workplace whether they have chosen a sufficiently green pension fund for the employees," says Whyte.

For their part, AkademikerPension and AP Pension have welcomed the report.

"We continue to see large, long-term return risks in the fossil fuel companies, which lack the right green transition plan," said AkademikerPension investment director, Anders Schelde.

"At the same time, unfortunately, it is also our experience that it is largely impossible to call out the management in these companies. To remain invested in such companies is therefore, in our view, both risky and irresponsible."

Earlier this year, AP Pension tightened its criteria for fossil fuel investments, adding 73 companies to its exclusion list, which now totals 187 companies.

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