"Why is Standard Bank still funding coal? Questions shareholders should ask at the bank's AGM ON 24 May 2018"

…[M]any of South Africa’s biggest banks, including Standard Bank, are still planning to finance new coal-fired power stations – power stations that we do not need, that will produce more expensive electricity than renewable energy, and that will emit massive amounts of pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions for decades into the future. In addition to the high cost of coal to the fiscus, polluting emissions from coal power also kill and impair the development of thousands of South Africans every year. This is an egregious violation of human rights, and has to stop.

Despite Standard Bank’s public acknowledgement of the risks posed by climate change, Standard Bank is one of the banks listed as a financier of the Thabametsi and Khanyisa independent power producer (IPP) coal-fired power station projects, planned for Limpopo and Mpumalanga respectively…

Shareholders need to ask questions about whether, and why, their money is being used to accelerate and intensify the effects of climate change. Shareholders are urged to attend Standard Bank’s AGM on 24 May 2018, and to ask questions about the bank’s commitments to financing new coal, notwithstanding its climate change and other negative impacts.