The statement comes after a landmark climate change deal in Paris with the approval of India, China and the U.S., after days of tough negotiations with the legally-binding pact seeking to limit global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius.
Reuters reports that the deal, which will only come into effect in 2020 following a 55% vote in, marks the most important climate agreement since the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. It commits rich and poor nations to rein in rising carbon levels and seeks to eliminate net greenhouse gas emissions from human activity this century.
Minister for Power, Coal and Renewable Energy, Piyush Goyal, saidIndia’s contribution to global greenhouse gases emissions was just 2.5 percent with 17 percent of the world’s population, while developed countries contributed a fifth of emissions with just 5 percent of the world’s population.
According to Thiemo Lang, portfolio manager of Zurich-based RobecoSAM, which owns shares in solar stocks: “This deal will help boost the mid- to long-term fundamentals in renewable energy generation, especially solar, while making any further investments in fossil-fuels increasingly vulnerable”.
Stocks in renewable energy companies rose on Monday, the first day of trading after world leaders agreed to a major climate change agreement.
Even though many global lenders are turning their backs on financing new coal projects in favour of gas and renewable energy, India should have few difficulties in financing dozens more new mines.
Fossil fuel companies, meanwhile, saw their prices tumble: Coal giant Peabody Energy Corp. fell by 12.6 percent, while Consol Energy Inc. dropped by 3.3 percent.
Along with the wind turbine makers, Goldman Sachs’ other top picks for stocks that would benefit from the Paris climate deal included electric vehicle company Tesla Motors, solar panel group SolarEdge and Albemarle, a chemicals company that supplies lithium – a key component for batteries.
He also criticised what he called “mob rule” by a cabal of world governments and protesters at the Paris climate summit, which he said posed a threat to democracy itself. “You need to give time to wait for the dust to settle, and 2020 is still a long way out”.
