Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2021-02-08)

 FINANCE Bloomberg Businessweek February 8, 2021

securities that banks cobbled together 15 years
ago. Just as lenders helped inflate the bubble that
triggered the 2008 global financial crisis, she says,
the money they provide to oil and gas producers
today is a primary cause of global warming. “You
will have increased the systemic climate risk of not
meeting the Paris goals,” she says.
BankTrack has been joined by multiple orga-
nizations such as Reclaim Finance and BankFWD
(founded by members of the Rockefeller family)
that are pursuing similar goals. Brayden King, a
professor at the Kellogg School of Management in
Evanston, Ill., who studies how activists influence
corporations, cautions that the groups must coor-
dinate their actions, targeting all the major banks
to ensure they maximize their clout. “Otherwise
energy clients will take their business elsewhere,”
he says. “It will just be money changing hands. The
climate problem will remain the same.”
Although many climate advocates focus on
divestiture campaigns, restrictions on financing
have a more profound environmental impact, says
TheodorCojoianu,anassistant professor at Queen’s
UniversityBelfast.Sellingsharesoffossilfuelpro-
ducersputsdownwardpressureonthestockprice—
l buttargetin

Arctic drilling and tar sands, as well as coal, an

industry already in rapid decline. More recently,

banks such as Barclays Plc and Morgan Stanley

have said they’ll calculate their carbon footprints

and set timelines for zeroing out their own green-

house gas emissions and those of the projects they

finance. There’s nothing wrong with zero-emissions

targets, Frijns says, but they typically lack detail and

the goals are too far in the future. “Net-zero is the

new ‘world peace,’ ” he says. “Everybody loves it.

How can you be against banks or anyone declaring

a net-zero target by 2050? But they are meaningless.”

Frijns, who got his start in activism by campaign-

ing against nuclear weapons as a teen, says the focus

on the coronavirus pandemic over the past year has

set back efforts to fight global warming. A major

global climate summit in Scotland was delayed,

activists had no opportunity to confront bank exec-

utives at their annual meetings, and talk of a green

economic recovery petered out. “We lost a precious

year,” he says. “What would have been good enough

two years ago is certainly not good enough now.”

Even so, Frijns has become more optimis-

ticsince the inauguration of Joe Biden. The new

U.S.president’srevocationofthe Keystone XL

pipelinelicense,forinstance,will spur lenders

l minethepotentialprofitsor

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RBC

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Mizuho

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 Financing extended

to the fossil fuel industry

from 2016 to 2019

$269b

$98b

accord,topbankshave

ossilfuel companies, which paid

jnssays. That, he

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arranged$2.7trillionin fundingtofo

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it harderforthemtofunde lorati ordevelo
oiland s fields. “Bankshave moreofan
enabli role,”Co ianus s.
Somebankshaverestricted theirfossil
fuelfinancin butthesemoves havebeen
limited to controversialprojects such  as

artoocontroversial,Fr

sa , “willmakebanksmore

sil fuels.”—Sai l Kishan

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY 731. PIPELINE: GETTY IMAGES. SCISSORS: ALAMY STOCK PHOTO. DATA: RAINFOREST ACTION NETWORK