After All Their Greenwash And Bullshit, World's Biggest Banks Not Even Close To Stepping Away From FF Investment

Global banks aren’t living up to targets to cut their financing of activities that are directly fueling climate change, according to a new study by the World Resources Institute. The analysis, which looked at 25 of the world’s biggest lenders, found that “not only are banks off-track to meet net-zero targets, but many of their pledges are less ambitious than they seem at face value.”

“Despite progress, many banks have no or weak targets in key sectors,” said Anderson Lee and Amanda Carter, the two WRI researchers who wrote the report released on Wednesday. What’s more, “existing targets are not aligned with limiting warming to 1.5C,” they said. The findings come as the finance industry grows more vocal in defending a business model it says should be focused on client preferences and profit-making, goals bankers say aren’t always aligned with protecting the climate.

Wall Street has also doubled down on warnings against a retreat from fossil fuels, with KKR & Co. co-founder Henry Kravis recently saying that climate activists who “would like to push a button and have no hydrocarbons” simply “don’t understand the facts.” Barclays Plc Chief Executive Officer CS Venkatakrishnan made a similar point, arguing that the world “can’t go cold turkey” on oil and gas.

At JPMorgan Chase & Co., CEO Jamie Dimon has called it “wrong” and “enormously naïve” to expect that fossil-fuel projects be dropped, while Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO David Solomon has made clear that oil and gas remain a “hugely important“ sector for his bank. Meanwhile, many of the same Wall Street firms are quitting climate alliances.

EDIT

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/2024/08/14/global-banks-are-nowhere-near-reaching-their-co2-targets/