November 5, 2021: The Bank of England’s announcement today on “greening” its Corporate Bond Purchase Scheme lets oil and gas giants like Shell and BP off the hook. Not nearly good enough.
British banks pump tens of billions into fossil fuels every year -- financing corporations drilling, fracking and mining around the world.
The Bank of England could stop them, but it's doing the opposite.
Research shows that the Bank of England has already pumped £11.4 billion of covid rescue money into dirty industries this year -- even though they’re just a fraction of the economy. Experts call it carbon bias, and simply naming it is having an effect.
But it’s not enough for experts to call out the bankers’ bias. The Bank of England is supposed to work for you and me, not Barclays and Shell.
The Bank of England sits at the heart of the country’s financial system. The Governor of the bank, Andrew Bailey, has special powers to steer financial institutions away from funding fossil fuels through regulation, on the grounds that runaway climate change will lead to economic breakdown.
The Bank of England’s last Governor, Mark Carney, repeatedly warned that climate change is a “tragedy of the horizon” -- but it’s already a tragedy for countless people who’ve done nothing to deserve it.
Unless central bankers change, banks and insurance firms will keep pursuing short term profit at the expense of everything else.
That's why a coalition of activists, finance experts and climate campaigners has come together to push for change. More than 130,000 SumOfUs members like you have been pushing the European Central Bank to stop funding the climate crisis too. We can't wait to see how this unfolds -- we need urgent action NOW.
More information
Bloomberg. 4 September 2020.
New Economics Foundation. 4 August 2020.