"Financial institutions have made big climate pledges. But they’ve also found reasons and ways to pass the buck, continuing to funnel money toward fossil fuels. Here’s why."
"A year ago, at the global climate summit in Glasgow, a group of some of the world’s biggest financial institutions agreed to end or offset all of their contributions to greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. They also said they’d commit their combined $130 trillion in assets toward creating a net-zero economy.
But just ahead of this year’s summit, the group, called the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net-Zero, dropped what climate activists say is a critical part of the alliance’s commitment: that its more than 550 members would adhere to United Nations criteria requiring them to phase out fossil fuels. Instead, the alliance is supporting the creation of a separate accountability tool. It would track and “determine whether commitments are being backed up by action,” a leader of its central secretariat, Alex Michie, said in a statement.
Despite their pledges to become carbon neutral, members of the alliance have continued to provide funding for fossil fuel companies and projects, according to reports by watchdog nonprofits.
As of April, only 60 out of 240 of the largest alliance members had any policy excluding support for coal companies developing new projects, according to an analysis by Reclaim Finance, a climate advocacy group. And even when firms do have these policies, there are often loopholes. A recent study by the Global Energy Monitor, a nonprofit group based in San Francisco, found that members of the Glasgow alliance continued to support coal developments indirectly — through corporate finance and investments in the companies responsible for them."
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