Nordea’s view on the climate and energy security in Europe

Nordea would like to provide more details on our position on the energy sector in a time of war, global challenges and geopolitical changes.

Our direction is clear. We continue our work with the goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050 at the latest and reducing the CO2 emissions from our lending portfolio by 40–50% by 2030 compared with 2019. These goals are aligned with the stance of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that global emissions must be reduced by 50% by 2030 to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. It is important for us to underline this.

The war in Ukraine and the global challenges have, however, created a new situation in Europe. It is more important than ever that Europe can both defend itself and secure its own energy supply. Norwegian natural gas is important for Europe’s energy supply and today accounts for nearly half of the EU’s gas imports. As a leading bank in all the four Nordic countries in which we operate, our view is that we have a societal responsibility to help secure Europe’s energy supply at this difficult time. Just as we see a responsibility to support the Nordic countries in strengthening their defence capabilities by providing financing for the defence industry.

We have consequently decided to continue financing a few selected Norwegian companies that are critical for the delivery of natural gas to Europe. This decision does not mean that we support unconventional oil and gas projects – and we also do not provide project financing for fossil exploration in the Arctic. Moreover, we continue to be in ongoing dialogue with our customers about how they can reduce their negative impact on the environment. We are not compromising on our climate goals. We have carefully assessed that this continued limited commitment can be accommodated within our climate commitments. In fact, we have already:

• Reduced our lending to the oil and gas sector by 92% since 2019. The oil and gas sector now accounts for less than 0.1% of our total lending.
   
• Reduced our financed emissions from the oil and gas sector by around 74% since 2019.

We believe that we can both help secure Europe’s energy security and continue to contribute to the green transition. It is not a choice between one or the other – we can and will do both. Because the green transition takes time and there is a need to build a bridge between the current need for independence from Russian gas and future fossil-free energy supply.

We will continue to be open about our progress and approach to the oil and gas sector – available to all in our report on the sector.