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<\/a><\/p>\nIsdore Guvamombe<\/p>\n
2 December 2011<\/p>\n
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Durban \u2014 LEADING world financial institutions including two that operate in Zimbabwe have been criticised for bankrolling companies that are emitting gases that aide the depletion of the ozone layer.<\/p>\n
Delegates to the 17th United Nations Climate Change Conference here dubbed the banks “climate killers” urged the financial institutions to channel their funds towards renewable energy.<\/p>\n
At least 93 of the world’s leading banks have been named and shamed in an effort to push for a change in their portfolios and stop them from investing in projects that are pushing the climate over to the brink.<\/p>\n
Environmental organisations say the financial institutions have an indispensable role in mobilising and allocating resources for the private sector and they are in a unique position to either further entrench energy production based on the burning of fossil fuels or to catalyse the necessary transition to a low carbon economy.<\/p>\n
The top climate killer financial institutions include banks from the United States, The United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, China and Japan.<\/p>\n
Barclays Bank and the Standard Chartered Bank that have their subsidiaries in Zimbabwe have also been named and shamed for bank rolling fossil fuel projects that harm the climate.<\/p>\n
Barclays Bank has been named in the top five after JP Morgan Chase, Citi, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley.<\/p>\n
According to a research that has been availed to delegates attending COP17, financial institutions have so far channelled 171 billion Euros to fossil fuel projects since the Kyoto Protocol came into force.<\/p>\n
The Kyoto Protocol seeks to bind all countries and institutions in the world to reduce gas emissions and save the world from climate change that results in high temperatures, droughts, flooding and shifting of rainfed agricultural seasons.<\/p>\n
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