Deutsche Bank is calling a halt to future coal investment and promising to gradually reduce its current project financing as part of its climate commitment under the Paris Agreement.
“Deutsche Bank and its subsidiaries will not grant new financing for greenfield thermal coal mining and new coal-fired power plant construction,” the bank, Germany’s biggest, announced earlier this week.
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“By signing the Paris Pledge for Action alongside over 400 private and public organizations, the bank has welcomed the universal climate agreement made at the 2015 Climate Summit in Paris,” Deutsche stated. “This emphasizes the bank’s commitment to protect the climate and to contribute to the overall targets set by the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 2°C above pre-industrial levels.”
GreenBiz adds that the bank’s decision “is part of a growing trend that has seen thousands of investors commit to divest their holdings in coal and other carbon intensive projects, following warnings they could be investing in a ‘carbon bubble.’ Some analysts have warned that if policy-makers honour the commitments in the Paris Agreement, demand for coal, oil, and other carbon-intensive fuels will fall sharply in the coming decades, as rival clean technologies become increasingly dominant.”
The announcement “follows a high-profile 2014 campaign in Deutsche Bank’s native Germany, which led to the bank pulling out of a deal to invest in the expansion of the Abbott Point coal port in Australia,” GreenBiz notes. “Green groups claimed then that Deutsche Bank had bowed to public pressure after 180,000 Germans signed” the petition, The Guardian recalls.
