Meet KEPCO: South Korea’s largest energy company. It generates almost all its power from coal and gas. And in the last few years has built coal mines in Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines. With stories of land grabbing, polluted fishing waters and devious silencing of protestors.

It’s financing this dirty habit by issuing bonds. Lots of them. And they are being snapped up by some of the world’s largest investors: TIAA, PIMCO and abrdn.

You may find yourself asking, how do polluting companies like KEPCO find hundreds of billions of dollars during a climate crisis to build new coal plants? The team’s worked with top researchers to uncover that some of the biggest financiers of KEPCO’s coal expansion are:

• US pension fund for teachers, professors and charity workers TIAA
• US investment giant PIMCO, which buys bonds for most of the world’s pension funds
• UK investment company abrdn
  
  

Now COP27 has finished, we've heard enough stories of backsliding by politicians and reports of too many fossil fuel lobbyists calling the shots. We cannot wait for politicians to save the planet or for investors to act without pressure. We have to use our power now.

KEPCO is uniquely reliant on toxic bonds to fund its dirty coal habits. If we push some of the world's most influential investors to stop buying these bonds it will give KEPCO no choice but to speed up the transition to clean energy.

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