• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
The climate news that makes a difference.
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
  FEATURED
Biden Approves $8B Oil Extraction Plan in Ecologically Sensitive Alaska March 14, 2023
U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse March 14, 2023
$30.9B Price Tag Makes Trans Mountain Pipeline a ‘Catastrophic Boondoggle’ March 14, 2023
UN Buys Tanker, But Funding Gap Could Scuttle Plan to Salvage Oil from ‘Floating Time Bomb’ March 9, 2023
Biden Cuts Fossil Subsidies, But Oil and Gas Still Lines Up for Billions March 9, 2023
Next
Prev

Hedge Fund Billionaire Prods Banks to Defund Hundreds of New Coal Plants

March 4, 2020
Reading time: 2 minutes

ferdinandkozeluh0 / Pixabay

ferdinandkozeluh0 / Pixabay

14
SHARES
 

A British hedge fund billionaire is on a mission to persuade central banks to withdraw financial support for hundreds of new coal plants now on the drawing boards, in a bid to block the projects and the climate-busting greenhouse gas emissions they would produce.

“Coal is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions globally and the risks of its continued use in the power sector are not being adequately addressed by regulators and the financial system,” wrote Sir Christopher Hohn, in a statement on the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation website. “Having worked to phase out coal for over 10 years, CIFF is now calling on regulators and banks to correctly account for and disclose the risks coal poses to humans, the environment, and to bank balance sheets.”

  • The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
  • You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
  • The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
Subscribe

In a letter to key central banks and financial institutions in the European Union, Hohn and CIFF Chair Dr. Graeme Sweeney ask the banks to disclose their coal financing, and the regulators to “make these disclosures mandatory and to significantly increase the applied risk-weighting of coal loans,” the foundation says in a release. “These policy moves, among others, would be impactful ways of making coal uneconomic and bringing an end to its harmful emissions.”

“Over the last three years alone, global financial institutions have channelled $745 billion in new lending and underwriting to companies developing coal plants, and UK and European banks remain counterparties for financing of their existing and new projects,” they wrote.

Sweeney’s published biography describes him as a 35-year fossil industry veteran who once headed Royal Dutch Shell’s global renewables business.

Reuters says the institutions receiving the letters included the Bank of England, the European Central Bank, Barclays, HSBC, Standard Chartered, and the Network for Greening the Financial System, a group of regulators pushing for better supervision of climate-related risk.

“Hohn, founder of hedge fund TCI, has emerged as one of the most outspoken investor voices urging companies to do more to tackle their own carbon emissions, and threatened in December to vote against directors who failed to act,” the news agency adds. In his February 28 missive to Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, he “warned that British banks were ‘highly likely’ to suffer losses on coal financing as the cost of renewables continued to fall and regulations on air pollution and carbon emissions tighten.” He called on the three big banks to “reveal any coal exposure on their balance sheets and classify such loans as high-risk”.



in Coal, Community Climate Finance, UK & Europe

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

Environmental Defence Canada/flickr
Shale & Fracking

Repsol Abandons Plan to Ship Canadian LNG to Europe

March 17, 2023
173
David Dodge, Green Energy Futures/flickr
Community Climate Finance

U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse

March 14, 2023
320
Behrat/Wikimedia Commons
Clean Electricity Grid

Hawaii Firm Turns Home Water Heaters into Grid Batteries

March 14, 2023
439

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

David Dodge, Green Energy Futures/flickr

U.S. Solar Developers Scramble after Silicon Valley Bank Collapse

March 14, 2023
320
Environmental Defence Canada/flickr

Repsol Abandons Plan to Ship Canadian LNG to Europe

March 17, 2023
173
Rebecca Bollwitt/flickr

Fossils Stay ‘Oily’, Gibsons Sues Big Oil, U.S. Clean Energy Booms, EU Pushes Fossil Phaseout, and Fukushima Disaster was ‘No Accident’

March 14, 2023
175
U.S. National Transportation Safety Board/flickr

$30.9B Price Tag Makes Trans Mountain Pipeline a ‘Catastrophic Boondoggle’

March 14, 2023
235
Behrat/Wikimedia Commons

Hawaii Firm Turns Home Water Heaters into Grid Batteries

March 14, 2023
439
Joshua Doubek/Wikipedia

No New Jobs Came from Alberta’s $4B ‘Job Creation’ Tax Cut for Big Oil

October 6, 2022
802

Recent Posts

U.S. Bureau of Land Management/flickr

Biden Approves $8B Oil Extraction Plan in Ecologically Sensitive Alaska

March 14, 2023
114
EcoAnalytics

Canadians Want Strong Emissions Cap Regulations, Not More Missed Targets

March 14, 2023
123
Raysonho/wikimedia commons

Purolator Pledges $1B to Electrify Last-Mile Delivery

March 14, 2023
79
United Nations

UN Buys Tanker, But Funding Gap Could Scuttle Plan to Salvage Oil from ‘Floating Time Bomb’

March 10, 2023
94
Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons

Biden Cuts Fossil Subsidies, But Oil and Gas Still Lines Up for Billions

March 10, 2023
185
jasonwoodhead23/flickr

First Nation Scorches Imperial Oil, Alberta Regulator Over Toxic Leak

March 8, 2023
374
Next Post
catmoz/pixabay

1.5°C Warming Means ‘Breathtaking’ $900-Billion Loss for Colossal Fossils

The Energy Mix - The climate news you need

Copyright 2023 © Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Proudly partnering with…

scf_withtagline
No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}