Risks don't come much longer term than climate change, so you might expect sovereign wealth funds to be all over it, as investment giants with decades in their sights.

Yet the world's biggest SWFs are making only patchy progress in adapting investment plans to account for environmental, social and governance factors, according to data on energy investments, an ESG analysis of the equity holdings of some of the funds, plus a survey of the players.

Such data provides snapshots into the complex and often opaque world of sovereign funds, which collectively hold nearly $8 trillion (¥883 trillion) in assets.