"Green Trillions Face ‘Acid Test’ After Bankers Toast COP Pledges", 06 Nov 2021

“The acid test for financial institutions around this is: Are they willing to draw back?,” said Catherine Howarth,... of ShareAction... Banks, investors and insurers representing $130 trillion in assets have now committed to decarbonizing their business by mid-century..., use science-based guidelines, and provide 2030 interim goals... [M]embers include... JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., Morgan Stanley, BlackRock Inc. and HSBC Holdings Plc.... [who] make up 40% of global financial assets. Absent from the list are the world’s three biggest banks, all of which are Chinese and... major providers of coal finance... But for investors and others keen to track how well banks are living up to their net zero pledges, there are some key numbers to track... “One important metric to look at is what is the rate of finance invested in fossil fuels versus the capital flows going to climate finance,” Cummis said. “If you look now, the rate of finance going into fossil fuels is more than twice as large as the capital going into climate finance.”... This year alone lenders have arranged about $460 billion of bonds and loans for the oil, gas and coal sectors, and even those to have signed up to GFANZ have made clear they won’t be abruptly exiting the space...