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Below is an extract from a M& G article on banks investing in “dirty” energy:

 

Where is all the money coming from to build dirty coal-powered energy plants? This is the question that a new report, titled “Bankrolling Climate Change”, seeks to answer. It was released this week at the COP17 climate change conference and ranks 93 global banks according to their financing of coal-fired power stations and coal mines.

South African banks Standard Bank and Nedbank made the list, coming in at 60 and 76 respectively. Standard Bank had a total of €447-million tied up in project finance, investment banking, corporate loans and assets related to the coal-energy sector; Nedbank had a total of €119-million.

Absa’s 56.4% shareholder Barclays Bank came in fifth on the overall list with a total of €11.5-billion invested, and Standard Bank’s 20% shareholder, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, came in 13th with €6.2-billion invested.

Other major coal energy financiers include JP Morgan Chase with €16.5-billion, Citi Bank with €13.75-­billion, Bank of America with €12.6-billion, Morgan Stanley with €12.1-billion, Deutsche Bank with €11.5-billion and the Royal Bank of Scotland with €10.9-billion.

The report was released by South African social and environmental justice organisations GroundWork and Earthlife Africa, alongside German environmental organisation Urgewald and international non-governmental organisation BankTrack, and is meant to embarrass the financing banks.

“While most large commercial banks provide figures on their annual investments into renewable energy, they neither track nor publish their annual investments into fossil fuel projects,” according to the report.

 

For more details visit: http://mg.co.za/article/2011-12-02-dirty-energy-financiers-shamed/