|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Last week, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall championed Wells Fargo and Company’s withdrawal from its sustainability goals set forth by The Net-Zero Banking Alliance.
NZBA is a UN convened group of global banks “committed to aligning their lending, investment, and capital markets activities with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.”
Wells Fargo announced its withdrawal from NZBA last December, and was followed by Citigroup Inc., Bank of America, Morgan and Stanley, The Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JP Morgan Chase and Co. In February, Wells Fargo announced it would be dropping its goal to pursue net-zero financed emissions across its portfolio by 2050, and its emissions reduction targets for 2030.
Marshall’s office, in a Friday press release, celebrated the company’s decision as a victory against environmental social governance policies, or investment policies which emphasize a corporation’s environmental sustainability or social impact.
Marshall’s office wrote that, while other major U.S. banks have left NZBA, only Wells Fargo has publicly ended its commitment to the goals set forth by the organization.
Marshall’s office also announced Wells Fargo would no longer be subject to an 18-state investigation led by Republican attorneys general into whether major U.S. banks “violated antitrust or consumer protection laws by colluding to implement net-zero emissions policies and restrict financing to certain segments of the economy.”
Marshall’s office wrote the coalition will continue investigating the five other banking groups that have left NZBA, but not publicly disavowed the organization’s sustainability targets.
Marshall’s office alleged that by aligning their portfolios to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, and setting specific “carbon-intensive sectors,” NZBA members “potentially compromised their fiduciary obligations to customers and investors or engaged in manipulative agreements with competitors, all while simultaneously usurping the policy-making authority of America’s elected representatives.”
“Despite banks having a fiduciary responsibility to their customers, global elites attempted to hijack these financial institutions in order to impose ruinous climate change policies on Americans that could never prevail at the ballot box,” Marshall said.
“Their greed was disguised as ‘environmental justice,’ which is exactly why we have antitrust laws. I cannot emphasize enough how critical these coalitions have been in combatting these radical groups and their anti-democratic policies,” Marshall continued.
Meanwhile, Investor Advocates for Social Justice, an organization devoted to developing a coalition of investors driven by “faith-based values” in order to promote “human rights, climate justice, racial equity and the common good,” denounced Wells Fargo’s decision to drop its climate commitments.
A press release from the organization called Wells Fargo’s decision “deeply disappointing” and “a serious setback in the fight against climate change.”
“It is especially disheartening that a financial institution with the influence of Wells Fargo has chosen to walk back its commitments, particularly given the growing body of scientific evidence supporting the need for urgent action,” IASJ wrote. “As the world continues to experience devastating climate-related disasters, companies must take responsibility for their role in addressing the climate crisis. This is not only to protect the planet but also to safeguard their own financial future and that of their investors.”
