Of World's 30 Largest Financial Institutions, Not One Has Followed Through On Climate Pledges
A flurry of climate pledges from financial institutions in recent years has not been followed by meaningful action, according to a report from the corporate accountability nonprofit InfluenceMap published on Friday.
Of the 30 largest financial institutions in the world, none has instituted fossil fuel finance policies that are in line with science-based guidance for stabilizing the climate at a safe temperature. Meanwhile, all of them retain membership in industry associations that routinely lobby against climate finance policies and regulations. “It remains likely that the financial sector will continue to enable real-economy activities misaligned with 1.5°C climate scenarios as long as they remain legally and economically viable in the short term,” the report says.
The authors of the report compiled data on corporate lending, equity and bond underwriting, and asset management activities across the 30 largest financial institutions in 2020 and 2021. (For banks, underwriting means lining up sales of stocks and bonds for companies.) They then analyzed whether these activities aligned with the banks’ own climate commitments, as well as industry-recognized, science-based benchmarks. In those two years alone, banks lent or underwrote $697 billion for oil and gas production and $42 billion for coal production. The single largest financier, at $81 billion, was J.P. Morgan.
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But Eden Coates, the lead author of the report and a senior analyst at InfluenceMap, told Grist that several of these financial institutions announced net zero ambitions in 2020, like Barclays and J.P. Morgan. Others, like French bank BNP Paribas, pledged to align their portfolios with the Paris Agreement years earlier. “And yet their fossil fuel policies remain misaligned with their climate goals in 2022,” Coates said. For example, last May, J.P. Morgan announced 2030 emission reduction targets for specific sectors, like auto manufacturing and power. Despite a goal to reduce the carbon intensity of its power industry finance by 69 percent, the bank more than doubled its financing of coal production between 2020 and 2021.
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https://grist.org/accountability/banks-promised-climate-action-where-is-it/
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