At President Joe Biden’s Leaders Summit on Climate last week, one constituency was a group somewhat new to the green spotlight: financiers.
Banks and investors made some big-dollar pledges: Bill Gates on plans to rapidly commercialize clean technologies. Dozens of banks in a new Net-Zero Banking Alliance. And more.
Why We Wrote This
President Joe Biden has proposed expansive federal spending on climate action. But a recent summit emphasized something seen as just as vital: mobilizing private sector investment.
It’s encouraging, say climate policy experts, because such private funding is necessary for there to be any hope of limiting the world’s temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius – the global warming target set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Exclusive: Credit Suisse investors call for tougher coal finance policy – letter
wsau.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from wsau.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Exclusive: Credit Suisse investors call for tougher coal finance policy - letter
netscape.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from netscape.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Climate Activists Say BlackRock Just Failed a Key Test
institutionalinvestor.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from institutionalinvestor.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
It’s through their loan books and investment portfolios that banks and asset managers make their biggest contribution to climate change.
The greenhouse gas emissions associated with financial institutions’ investing, lending and underwriting activities are more than 700 times higher, on average, than their direct emissions, according to a report published Wednesday by climate nonprofit CDP. While banks generate emissions from heating their buildings and flying executives to meetings when pandemic restrictions allow “almost all climate-related impacts and risks of global financial institutions come from financing the wider economy,” CDP said in a statement.
Wall Street dollars can either be an enabler for polluting industries, providing the world’s biggest emitters with funding for extraction and drilling, or a powerful lever used to push companies to cut emissions and prepare for a low-carbon future. Several major banks, including Bank of America Corp., Barclays Plc a