Last week, London-based HSBC Bank announced its withdrawal from the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA). The NZBA is one of a number of 'alliances' of financial institutions formed by the UN under the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) umbrella, launched at COP26, but which is now falling apart, as discussed recently here. HSBC joined the alliance in 2021 as a founder member, making the bank’s exit all the more significant, in addition to the fact of it being London-based and the first UK bank to quit, despite Ed Milband’s intention of making the UK the “sustainable finance capital of the world”. Green finance is not going according to plan.
Green finance initiatives, from ESG to the GFANZ and its subsidiary 'alliances', are attempts to subvert democratic control of policy. In the late 2000s and into the 2010s it became apparent that a global emissions-reduction policy was an ambition too far. National governments could not impose such things on their populations without risking serious political pushback. But the green movement’s financiers had bigger plans. By making obedience to green diktats a condition of financial agreements, which are private, those financiers could make a lot of money and governments could take a back-seat role.
As Mark Carney explained: “In the run up to COP26 in Glasgow, we have an enormous opportunity to bring climate change into the heart of every financial decision.” Governments, in the policy frameworks that Carney proposed, would only need to regulate what
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Banks and financial institutions exist to make money not lose it.
Managers’ fiduciary duty is to share holders not eco-zealots and climate loonies.
But it is the Trump-effect – the whole climate change/Net Zero hoax cannot continue without the World’s largest economy participating.
Most now realise this except Mad Ed Minibrain.
Well done to the HSBC!
It’s a start, but only a small one, a long way to go yet. It will ramp up when the grid collapses, companies go bust, and we are queueing up at government ‘restaurants’ for our three quid meal.
I really did roll my eyes at the notion of “government restaurants” – they’re just glorified soup kitchens.
For you, your employees and your neighbours, then, climate policy, even if mediated by companies rather than government, is a bigger threat to you than climate change.
Isn’t that the truth laid bare. If companies produced an honest climate assessment then they would be highlighting that government regulations, laws, taxes, on climate change were a risk to their business not the weather.
That little WEF puppet Sunak said the objective was going to re-wire the entire global financial system to deliver Net Zero.
Just as well the little pipsqueak and the Treacherous Tories were kicked out. Now we’ve just got to rid ourselves of Two-Tier and Red Ed.
What high street presence? Note the withdrawal of cash machines too, the push towards the digital pound and a ccp style control system is silently progressing at a fast pace.
Funny how at outside events so many people are pleased when you hand over cash to pay and save them the wait while the card system connects and makes the payment, assuming there is a signal in the first place.
Most of these financial institutions have turned to AI (Augmented Intelligence) mainframes these days which uses up to 10 times more power than previous computing systems
If they really wanted to save the planet just stop using them! Big business in the tech industry is becoming the biggest single user of electricity because of AI, they always seemed to make enough dosh before it came along!
A.I. is not artificial intelligence it is just Big data collection which is then processed and vomited back, the machine does not think, it just uses available data, and basically sh£t in sh8t out.
Precisely, that’s why I referred to it as augmented intelligence
Here is an interesting perspective on AI and global weather from Willis Eschenbach
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/07/14/learning-with-the-dumbest-genius-librarian/
Its nowhere near ‘over’…