Norway is to raid its €900 billion sovereign wealth fund to ramp up investment in wind and solar power projects. The intention is to double its existing commitment and spend more than €12.5 billion on schemes developing the clean energy needed to combat climate change.

The government’s sovereign wealth fund—the world’s largest—has announced it is selling its stake in 134 oil and gas companies that don’t have renewable energy divisions. And it says it will for the first time inject finance into renewable energy projects that are not listed on stock markets.

Previously, it had warned that such investments could be at risk from political interference. But now the sum the fund can invest in green projects has been doubled to $14bn. “Even a fund built on oil is seeing that the future is green,” said Jan Erik Saugestad, CEO of Storebrand Asset Management.

In March, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund said it would dispose of its investments in 134 companies that explore for oil and gas, worth almost $8bn. But it is retaining stakes in oil firms such as Shell and BP that have renewable energy divisions.

Norway also announced on Friday that the fund would sell off its stakes in more coal companies, having set a new limit for them of 20m tonnes of reserves. This may see its investments in giants Glencore and RWE dumped. The fund divested $6.5bn of coal-related investments in 2015.

Across the world, almost 1,000 institutional investors, managing more than more than $6tn, have now committed to fossil fuel divestment, driven by concerns about global warming and financial losses if climate action cuts the value of coal, oil and gas investments.

“Unlisted renewable energy is a growth industry,” said Tom Sanzillo at IEEFA. “Investments by Norway’s fund now allow it to take advantage of this growth and to use its resources to develop the market for decades. This is a strong step for the health of the fund and the planet."