Investors with more than $26.3 trillion (£19.6tn) in assets under management have pledged to push the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters to step up their actions on tackling climate change.

The initiative known as Climate Action 100+, launched by 225 institutional investors, led by funds including HSBC Global Asset Management, Australian Super and CalPERS, will target the 100 top emitters.

The initial list of companies, which includes but is not limited to those within the oil and gas, power and transportation sectors, has been developed using CDP data on their combined direct and indirect emissions.

Some of the firms are Coal India, ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Korea Electric Power, Toyota and United Technologies.

The investors will push the companies to take action to cut emissions across their value chain and provide enhanced corporate disclosure to enable investors to assess the robustness of companies’ business plans against a range of climate scenarios.

Stephanie Maier, Director of Responsible Investment at HSBC Global Asset Management said: “Climate change is a material and systemic risk no long term investor can afford to ignore.

“To support the full implementation of the Paris Agreement, it is also vital that investors and universal owners across the mainstream investment community do more to ensure major corporate emitters move swiftly to address the risks and pursue the opportunities presented by climate change, providing greater disclosure on how they are aligning with the 2°C transition.”