Mark Carney called out for allowing banks to greenwash

As the UN’s special envoy for climate finance, Canadian Mark Carney is one the most prominent leaders in the still new world of climate finance. But groups who work directly on stopping climate chaos are concerned his well intentioned efforts are being used to greenwash business as usual by the world’s biggest banks and financial institutions.

Today our network, led by Stand and Greenpeace in Canada, joined by high profile international NGO’s and signed by over 90 other global climate groups, published full page ads in the Toronto Star and Financial Times (London), calling out Carney’s problematic behaviour.

Former director of Climate Action Network Canada Catherine Abreau also wrote an opinion article for the National Observer, where she highlighted the core hypocrisy of Carney’s work:

Carney’s main role at the UN is organizing large global banks, investors, and other financial institutions to join the new Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, also known as GFANZ.

GFANZ and its sub-groups have quickly signed up many of the world’s biggest financial institutions, which have, in turn, pledged to become “net zero” by 2050.

Yet many of the financial institutions, such as Citi, HSBC, and MUFG, that have signed onto GFANZ remain among the world’s top backers of fossil fuels, and the majority of signatories have submitted no detailed plans to reduce their fossil fuel investments.

If that sounds like a lot of greenwash, that’s because it is. Banks always talk about their new green finance contribution and conveniently fail to mention their ongoing dirty financing. Many GFANZ members have continued to invest more money in expanding fossil fuel production, even since signing onto the alliance. As another embarrassing example, Citi, Commerzbank, and Bank of America — all GFANZ members — are helping Russian coal giant SUEK expand its coal mining and power business.

The letter was covered extensively in the Canadian (here) and UK media (here).

See the ad on the Stand website or below.