Tag: Net Zero

Just over three months ago, Mark Gallogly was brought in to be an advisor to John Kerry, President Biden’s climate envoy. But the appointment was a controversial one.

Kerry has stated that his advisor made invaluable connections with the financial sector to persuade banks and asset managers of the need for climate action.

Chimney sweeps were spotted on the streets of London yesterday, as activists protested about pollution caused by some of the city’s biggest institutions. It wasn’t sooty smoke from fireplaces and power stations they were complaining about though, but the carbon emissions generated by investments from the UK’s biggest banks and asset managers.

We know that UK banks and asset managers like Barclays and HSBC are fuelling the climate crisis by financing polluting companies. Now new analysis exposes just how much the finance sector is in for.

The climate resolution put forward at this year’s AGM is a good start, and your plan to end coal financing by 2040 is promising. But you still have a lot more to do before you can claim to be fully aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Wow. HSBC, one of the biggest funders of fossil fuels in the world, has announced plans to set clear deadlines for ending coal financing.

The bank’s board of directors has tabled a resolution for its upcoming AGM to phase out support for coal companies.

In a major step forward in ending fossil fuel financing, the Bank of England has been given a new mandate to support the government’s net-zero carbon strategy. As a result, the Bank will need to realign its monetary policies away from fossil fuels and towards investment in sustainable industries.

A group of HSBC shareholders is disappointed that the bank isn’t taking urgent steps to end financing for fossil fuel companies. So they’ve introduced a new resolution to be voted on at the upcoming AGM, one that will force HSBC to publish a plan explaining how it will clean up its books.

Another day, another ‘climate announcement’ by a major bank. 

This week, Barclays has announced how it intends to reach ‘net-zero’ by 2050.

It’s been revealed that between January and September of this year, Barclays increased its financing of key fossil fuel players compared to the same period last year in spite of a commitment by the bank to align its business with climate goals.

Europe’s largest bank has today announced it will go net-zero by 2050 but these commitments lack immediate exclusions of coal, oil and gas companies, and those most responsible for deforestation, which are now the bar of ambition.

The whole idea of ‘net-zero’ has rocketed into the mainstream lately, and for good reason if we’re to have any chance of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees. The devastating giga-fires and red skies across California cast a sense of foreboding that climate impacts will only worsen if we don’t act now.