Climate activists say big bank climate change finance plans are greenwashing

(The Examiner, 7 December 2015) Recently eleven banks including the World Bank, European Investment Bank and Credit Agricole, announced the launch of ‘Five Voluntary Principles for Mainstreaming Climate Actions Within Financial Institutions’. On Monday December 7, at the UNFCCC COP21 Climate Summit in Paris, France, BankTrack, Friends of the Earth France and Rainforest Action Network jointly issued a statement in response. The potential importance of this is that banks have a great deal of control over what our society chooses to do. How? It's the banks that decide which projects to underwrite, meaning that it doesn't matter how cool and wonderful a solar farm or wind farm is, the banks can block construction by refusing to loan the money necessary to fund the project.