Latest news with #ShargiilBashir
Reuters
15-04-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Banks vote to loosen climate coalition membership rules
Summary Back a more flexible temperature target for members Over 80% of members voted; 90% of votes cast in favour Comes as real economy, policy and technology lag on climate ambition LONDON, April 15 (Reuters) - The world's leading bank coalition looking to help tackle climate change has voted to ditch some of its more stringent membership rules to better reflect the slow pace of change in the real economy, its chair told Reuters. The UN-backed Net Zero Banking Alliance has been canvassing members over changes to its rules amid the withdrawal of some of the coalition's biggest banks and as the United States leads calls to abandon climate action in the financial sector. Banks voted to abandon a more stringent target to align all sector financing with 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average by mid-century and replace it with a more flexible ambition to align their businesses with a well-below 2 degrees target, albeit striving for 1.5 degrees. The changes reflect recognition that the real economy is falling short in its transition to be more sustainable while policy making and technology advances have not happened at the rate predicted when banks and asset managers first came together to declare collective action for climate at COP26 in Glasgow. "The knowledge we had in 2021 on what was achievable ... has been very different than where we are today," Shargiil Bashir, Chief Sustainability Officer and Executive Vice President at First Abu Dhabi Bank said. "Some of the industries are not transitioning as we expected four years ago because either the technology is not moving as fast or the policymaking is not moving as fast," he said naming housing and aviation as examples. Over 100 of the groups member banks have already set 1.5 degree aligned sector targets, but the group wants to attract banks in countries which are not aligned to 1.5 degrees to bolster its numbers. The overhaul reflects NZBA's next phase as it moves from primarily a target-setting organisation to one which helps banks implement those changes through webinars, sectoral papers and other capacity-building activities, Bashir said. Options to be discussed include how the financial industry can use different methods of accounting for calculating or reducing planetary warming emissions such as avoided emissions or carbon markets, Bashir said. Over 80% of NZBA members voted while 90% of the votes cast were in favour of the proposals.
Reuters
12-03-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Bank climate coalition seeks to overhaul rules, chair says
LONDON, March 12 (Reuters) - The world's leading climate coalition for the banking sector is canvassing members over changes to its rules, its chair told Reuters, following the withdrawal of some of the biggest banks and as the real economy falls short of more ambitious climate action. Shargiil Bashir, Chief Sustainability Officer and Executive Vice President at First Abu Dhabi Bank said the move, flagged to members late on Tuesday, also reflected developments in science, policy, methodologies and regulation. He declined to give detail on the proposals themselves, but a source with direct knowledge, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they included dropping a need to align lending with a goal of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial average. A review into the Net Zero Banking Alliance's (NZBA) membership rules has been underway for more than a year, but pressure has mounted on the organisation since climate-sceptic Donald Trump won a second term as U.S. president. Ahead of the inauguration of Trump, all of the six biggest U.S. banks left the banking alliance, and they were subsequently joined by Australian, Canadian, and Japanese lenders. U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley (MS.N), opens new tab in October became the first of the major banks to lower its expectations for the impact it aimed to achieve from cutting loan-book emissions. "NZBA is evolving its offer in response to changing external circumstances and member needs," Bashir said. "Since NZBA was founded four years ago, the external landscape has rapidly changed in ways that influence the banking industry's ability to support clients to advance the net-zero transition."
