STMP news on COP

We’re closing out Day 4 of the Glasgow Climate Talks ― and there is so much happening it’s hard to keep up. So we wanted to give you a quick rundown of all the latest happenings from COP26. Yesterday (Day 3) was Climate Finance Day, where world leaders and private sector executives announced new climate targets for climate financing.

Greta, Indigenous Environmental Network, and Greenpeace crash Offsets Panel

On Wednesday, Greta Thunberg and other activists interrupted a panel on carbon offsets calling offsets out for greenwashing (Bloomberg article here). Mark Carney, head of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero spoke at the end of the panel in defense of offsets. Much thanks to Greta for being in solidarity with our movement and including banks in her tweet denouncing these climate villains!

Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero

The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ)–which includes banks, insurers, asset managers, and more–announced in its progress report that more than 450 financial firms with $130 trillion in assets have committed to net zero targets over the next three decades. As Richard Brooks of STAND.earth said in our STMP response, “There is no mention of the F words [fossil fuels] at all in this new declaration from the Net Zero clubs.”

The Net Zero Banking Alliance is one group under the GFANZ umbrella group. At this point, the top six banks of each Canada and the United States are a part of it. Jason Disterhoft of Rainforest Action Network points out that, “In 2020, 39 NZBA banks provided a total of $575 billion in lending and underwriting to the fossil fuel industry…either they stop financing fossil expansion, or their net-zero commitments are greenwash.”

Many mainstream outlets regurgitated the “$130 trillion committed to net zero” line from GFANZ but it’s clear that our critical narrative is finally making headway in mainstream financial press (see this coverage by CNBC, Investment Week, Bloomberg, Politico, Financial Times, and S&P Global). Special shoutout to Reclaim Finance for breaking through the net zero narrative!

20 countries have agreed to stop funding fossil fuel projects abroad

Yes. 20 countries, including the United States and Canada, have promised to stop public financing of fossil fuel projects abroad by the end of next year. According to Reuters, “By covering all fossil fuels, including oil and gas, the deal goes further than a pledge made by G20 countries this year to halt overseas financing for just coal.” Countries that signed the pledge together invested nearly $18 billion on average each year in international fossil fuel projects from 2016-2020, according to analysis by STMP member org Oil Change International.

However, public finance for international fossil fuels abroad is just one sliver of global fossil fuel financing, and pales in comparison to fossil fuel finance from the top 5 US banks alone. The U.S. will have to step up their regulation of Wall Street banks and all financial institutions to ensure that we reverse the trend of increasing finance for fossil fuels everywhere.

Morgan Stanley Releases 2030 Targets

Morgan Stanley announced new 2030 targets to reach its commitment to net-zero financed emissions by 2050, including goals for 29 and 58 percent reductions in “financed emissions lending intensity” from the bank’s energy and power portfolios, respectively, by 2030 (STMP release on Climate Finance Day here).

If “financed emissions lending intensity” doesn’t sound like “financed emissions,” that’s because it’s not. To read more about this tricky carbon accounting, check out this piece in The Guardian called, “The dark secrets behind big oil’s climate pledges”featuring quotes from a number of STMP members.

Tara Houska, tribal attorney, founder of Giniw Collective and STMP steering committee member: “When our grandkids look back at this critical tipping point and ask what we did, do the institutions that fund climate crisis think greenwashing and largely toothless policies will suffice? Net-zero commitments while still funding fossil fuel expansion is like throwing a bucket of water on one side of a burning building while splashing more gas on the other side. The world’s major financiers are largely sticking to entrenched industry bottom lines — the bottom line of climate disaster is far, far worse.”

US lags further after British Treasury issues new fossil fuel finance standards

UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, announced new requirements for firms to publish net zero transition and decarbonization plans in alignment with the goals of Paris. Read the STMP release here.

Brooke Harper, Fossil Free Fed Campaign Manager for 350.org: “We echo the sentiments of the movement in the UK. It’s good that financial institutions will have to publish transition plans to show how they’re going to stop being part of the problem and become part of the solution – but what really matters isn’t what they’re planning to do in 2050, but what they do now and in the next few years. Importantly, for President Biden, this shows how vital it is to replace Federal Reserve Chair Powell with someone like Lael Brainard, who will take the climate crisis seriously.”

Adele Shraiman, Fossil-Free Finance Campaign Representative, Sierra Club:“As UK financial regulators are taking promising steps to hold financial institutions accountable for their contribution to the climate crisis, their US counterparts should be taking note. Last month, US regulators took an important first step by affirming the connection between climate risk and financial risk, but they’re still falling behind their global peers by failing to actually address the problem. That means forcing Wall Street to account for its toxic, risky investments that threaten to turn the climate crisis into a financial crisis.”

JPMorgan Protests in Scotland

As world leaders met at COP26, activists took the message directly to the front doors of the world’s largest funder of fossil fuels. In Glasgow, nearly 200 people shut down a street outside of JPMorgan Chase’s main office and displayed a giant banner that read, “Stop Funding Fossil Fuels”. At the same time, another group of activists blockaded JPMorgan’s Edinburgh offices ― bringing some very welcome global solidarity to the campaign to stop the money pipeline to climate chaos.

Pledge to End Deforestation

The Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use is being hailed as perhaps the greatest success of COP26 so far. More than 100 countries, including the US, Brazil, Indonesia and China, have committed to ending and reversing deforestation by 2030. In all, the nations signed up to the pledge account for more than 85% of the world’s forests. This is a significant step in the right direction, however, as our partner Stand.Earth pointed out, the commitment doesn’t go far enough.

One of the biggest questions we’re sitting with is how will Wall Street respond to this news. Since the Paris Agreement was signed, US banks have loaned billions to corporations engaged in deforestation. Either that changes, or Wall Street will utterly undermine the commitment made by world leaders in Glasgow to end and reverse deforestation.

UK Banks Commit to Phase-out Coal Financing – But Continuing Funding Fossils

Several major UK banks have signed up to the Power Past Coal Alliance, committing to end the world’s dependence on coal. They were among the first banks to join the alliance. However, as our friends in the UK have noted, those same banks have loaned billions to the fossil fuel industry in the years leading up to the start of COP.

On Monday, the organization Market Forces announced that Barclays had won the “Race to Disaster”, having loaned more money to the fossil fuel industry than any other bank in the year leading up to the start of the climate talks. They celebratedthe win outside a branch in downtown Glasgow and then redecorated a branch in Glasgow’s south side, announcing the news.

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