Insurer AXA says made investment portfolios greener in 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – French insurer AXA said it reduced the temperature score of its investments in 2019, bringing them closer to alignment with the targets of the Paris Agreement on climate change.

The so-called “warming potential” of its investments, a measure of their contribution to climate change, had fallen to 2.8 degrees Celsius from 3 degrees Celsius in 2018, AXA said in its 4th Climate Report released on Friday.

The Paris Agreement, struck in 2015, aims to keep average global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius and ideally at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial norms by 2050.

(Reporting by Simon Jessop; editing by Jason Neely)