On November 24th the Australian National Contact Point published its initial assessment of Bushfire survivors and Friends of the Earth Australia’s OECD climate complaint against ANZ. This Initial Assessment is available here: https://ausncp.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-11/complaint_20.pdf Jack Egan​, one of the co-complainants whose home in coastal New South Wales was destroyed in January’s bushfires, said​ “I welcome the Independent Examiner’s acceptance of our climate complaint against ANZ and initial finding that ‘climate change, fossil fuels (and associated GHG) are sufficiently material to responsible business conduct as understood in the OECD Guidelines.” Friends of the Earth’s Legal officer Emillia Nazari said “We welcome the offer of the Australian National Contact point to hear this important climate complaint and look forward to productively partaking in the process moving forward. We note that since our complaint was made earlier this year ANZ has announced it will exit thermal coal by 2030”. “The OECD Guidelines clearly state that when an enterprise is directly linked to negative impacts of another entity for which prevention or mitigation is not feasible, it should consider disengaging responsibly. We therefore respectfully disagree with the Independent Examiner's finding in relation to divestment and will continue to make our case that responsible fossil fuel divestment is a globally and scientifically recognised…

Communities affected by projects financed under the Equator Principles, banks’ own rules for financing large infrastructure projects, report that consultation is unsatisfactory and they are unable to seek redress through effective accountability mechanisms. This is despite the Principles requiring that effective stakeholder engagement and project-level grievance mechanisms are put in place. These issues are reflected in the findings of BankTrack’s new briefing paper, “Trust Us, We’re Equator Banks” Part II, published today. Although banks began implementing a new version of the Equator Principles, “EP4”, in October, the new Principles do not address these shortcomings.   The paper investigates nine projects financed under the Equator Principles since 2016, in high-risk sectors such as mining, hydropower, coal, oil and gas. It finds that the banks financing the projects failed to ensure adequate assessment documentation was provided to affected stakeholders for seven out of the nine projects analysed, although this is a requirement of the Principles. In addition, it found that although the Equator Principles require project-level grievance mechanisms to be put in place so that project-affected communities can raise complaints and seek resolution, in many cases these mechanisms are not actually being used. Reasons include distrust in project sponsors and a lack of awareness of the mechanism. For example, local communities impacted by the Nachtigal Hydropower project in Cameroon…

French oil company Total is aiming to ensure the much-delayed Final Investment Decision on the controversial East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP),  a 1,445 kilometer pipeline from Hoima in Uganda to the port of Tanga in Tanzania, is signed before the end of this year. If completed, it will be the longest heated crude oil pipeline in the world. Debt financing for the project is yet to be finalised, but Stanbic Bank Uganda (a subsidiary of South Africa’s Standard Bank), Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and China’s ICBC have all been linked to the project as advisors or lead arrangers. Meanwhile the risks associated with this continue to mount, and controversy is likely to follow Total and banks as this project progresses. A new briefing issued today from BankTrack and partners Africa Institute for Energy Governance (AFIEGO), BothENDS, Just Share and Inclusive Development International outlines the many risks that investors and banks could face from the EACOP, and provides questions to help prospective financiers understand those risks and assess whether a decision to proceed with or finance the EACOP is in their long-term interests. 9469 financerisk.jpg center . Photo: BankTrack The briefing sets out severe and unacceptable social, environmental and human rights impacts associated with the project and argues that these pose risks to financiers that cannot be adequately mitigated. As such, the briefing advises that banks avoid financing the pipeline and seek ways to allocate their capital to…

Save Lamu has learned that the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has decided not to finance the Lamu coal plant due to cited environmental and social risks with the project. Save Lamu has previously submitted various petitions and complaints to ICBC citing extensive environmental destruction and social risks that would be encountered once the project is operational. The 1,050MW Lamu coal plant was expected to be the largest coal plant in East Africa and first in Kenya. It was proposed to be built at Kwasasi, Lamu County. According to the project documents for the coal plant, it was expected that ICBC would finance the project at a tune of USD 1.2 billion. A reliable source at ICBC has now said the bank will not make this investment. The proposed plant is a public-private partnership (PPP), developed on a build-own-operate (BOO) basis by Amu Power, a special purpose joint venture of two Kenyan companies, Centum Investments and Gulf Energy. The recent revelation from ICBC marks the biggest big blow to the project as it was expected that the bank was funding 60% of the USD 2 billion expected development costs for the coal plant. “We are very happy and grateful to hear that the ICBC will no longer fund Amu Power for the coal project. We as Save Lamu will always be there to defend its people and our environment; we don’t want a coal project in Lamu County and in Kenya at large,” said Is’haq Abubakar, Vice Chairperson at Save Lamu. Save Lamu, together with its other partners and supporters, has…

Almost half of companies featured on the 2020 GCEL are in expansion mode Less than 25 of companies on the list have adopted a coal phase-out date More than 500 GW of new coal-fired capacity are still in the global pipeline   Today, Urgewald and 30 partner NGOs released a new update of the “Global Coal Exit List” (GCEL), the world’s most comprehensive database of companies operating along the thermal coal value chain.  “We are in a climate emergency and a speedy exit from coal is more urgent than ever. Our database identifies 935 companies the finance industry needs to blacklist if it is serious about fulfilling the Paris goals,” says Heffa Schuecking, director of Urgewald. Since the Paris Climate Agreement was signed, the world’s installed coal-fired capacity has increased by 137 GW, an amount equal to the operating coal plant fleets of Germany, Russia and Japan combined. And over 500 GW of new coal-fired capacity are still in the pipeline. “Almost half of the companies listed on the 2020 GCEL are in expansion mode,” says Schuecking. 437 of the 935 companies featured in the database are planning either new coal plants, new coal mines or new coal transport infrastructure. Less than 25 of the companies on the GCEL have adopted a coal phase-out date. “The data we have collected is a frightening testimony to the coal industry’s refusal to deal with climate reality,” she adds. The GCEL was first launched in November 2017 and is updated each fall. It has played…

It’s been revealed that between January and September of this year, Barclays increased its financing of key fossil fuel players compared to the same period last year in spite of a commitment by the bank to align its business with climate goals. Read the full report here Updated figures by Rainforest Action Network (RAN), which in partnership with other organisations produces the most comprehensive report on global banks' fossil fuel financing, show that in Q1 to Q3 of this year, Barclays provided $24.58 billion in underwriting and lending to major fossil fuel companies, including coal and tar sands companies, and oil and gas expanders. This is $200 million more than in the same period last year when this figure stood at $24.38 billion. In March, Barclays committed to 'take a leading role in tackling climate change and help accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy' with the ambition 'to become a net zero bank by 2050'. In fact, on the same day as it made this announcement, it closed on a deal with major tar sands producer Enbridge, assisting in the provision of a $2.1bn loan to the company, data from Eikon shows. Enbridge is currently building a new pipeline, Line 3, which would be one of the largest crude oil pipelines in the world, carrying up to 915,000 barrels per day of tar sands crude – one of the most carbon-intensive fuels on earth. This is in addition to being a key participant in 10 other loans or bonds issued by tar sands companies.  As for HSBC, Europe’s second largest…

TD Bank Group released a new climate action plan today, pledging to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions from its operations and financing activities by 2050. The bank is the latest major financial institution to make such a commitment, following similar announcements by Morgan Stanley and Barclays. TD’s new plan also rules out project-specific funding for oil and gas development in the Arctic Circle, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. TD is now the third major Canadian bank to prohibit financing drilling in the Arctic Refuge, following Royal Bank of Canada and Bank of Montreal, and joins a list of more than two dozen global banks that reject funding for Arctic oil and gas. However, TD’s new plan does not address the bank’s funding of Canadian tar sands, which is one of the most highly-polluting fuel sources on the planet. According to the annual Banking on Climate Change fossil fuel finance report, TD is the world’s biggest funder of tar sands oil, pouring more than USD 22.5 billion into the tar sands industry from 2016-2019. In response, Sierra Club Senior Campaign Representative Ben Cushing released the following statement: "Committing to net-zero financed emissions by 2050 is a good step forward, and in recent months has become the new baseline for banks looking to clean up their act on climate. Now this commitment needs to be followed up with critical next steps for actually getting there, including a near-term target for emissions reductions and a clear plan to phase out…