Climate: meeting in Paris, French finance had to defend its action – 27/10/2022 at 18:52
Pressed to do more in the face of the climate crisis, French finance is in Paris for Climate Finance Day, a meeting dedicated to global warming ( AFP / MIGUEL MEDINA )
Pressed to do more in the face of the climate crisis, French finance met on Thursday for Climate Finance Day, a meeting in the Place de Paris disrupted even before its start by an action by two environmental associations.
About forty activists from Friends of the Earth and Alternatiba Paris poured black paint, representing oil, on the steps of the Palais Brongniart, where the event is taking place, and launched black smoke bombs, symbolizing gas.
“We came this morning to send a message to the umpteenth opening of this greenwashing summit”, explained to AFP shortly before the start of the conferences Lorette Philippot, campaign manager for the NGO Friends of the Earth.
This was the 8th edition of Climate Finance Day, and the sector’s climate promises are still far from being in line with the objective of the Paris Agreement signed in 2015.
The commitments made in recent years on stopping the financing of coal and reducing the financing of unconventional hydrocarbons “are not sufficient”, judged the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire in a video broadcast among the first interventions of the day.
“We have to go faster, stronger, we have to be more transparent,” continued the minister. “There are still too many doubts, too many questions, too much criticism about the reality of the commitments,” he said.
– Create a committee –
To deal with criticism and provide guarantees of transparency, the Paris market announced the creation of an “Institute of sustainable finance”, operational “in the coming weeks” according to Augustin de Romanet, president of Paris Europlace and head of Aéroports de Paris (ADP).
A “very good initiative” according to Bruno Le Maire, which brings together scientists, industrialists and financiers.
The founder of the NGO Reclaim Finance Lucie Pinson deplores the absence of NGOs and the vagueness bypasses this new commission: roadmap, working method, evaluations and controls…
Expected production above the 1.5°C threshold of the fifteen largest oil and gas companies, until 2040 ( AFP / )
Faced with the risk of criticism, the banking lobby has tried to take the lead, communicating on Tuesday on “the massive financing of renewable energies and green and sustainable activities” with a total amount of green and sustainable credits representing more than 100 billion euros. euros at the end of 2021, according to him.
A demonstration that is a “manipulation”, according to Lucie Pinson.
The European Central Bank (ECB) in July asked banks in the euro zone to “urgently” repay the consideration of climate risks in their strategy. “Currently, banks are far from respecting good practices,” the ECB had scolded.
Faced with this observation, the Governor of the Banque de France François Villeroy de Galhau, at the end of the day, proposed to tighten the regulations by requiring “additional capital in the event that the banks’ individual transition plans appear deficient or misaligned “.
– BNP Paribas given formal notice –
The experts interviewed by AFP assure it, the NGOs “are right” on the merits, even if finance is “neither ahead nor behind compared to the economy”, underline Virginie Wauquiez and Laurent Morel , from the consulting firm Carbone 4.
Some establishments, such as CNP Assurances or Crédit Mutuel Alliance Fédérale (which bring together 14 of the group’s 18 federations, as well as CIC), have adopted stricter exclusion policies, but their weight in the financing of the oil and gas industry is negligible, especially compared to the banking giant BNP Paribas, a pet peeve of environmental activists.
(lr) Cécile Duflot of Oxfam France, Lorette Philippot of “Friends of the Earth” and Justine Ripoll of “Notre Affaire à Tous” during an action in front of a BNP Paribas bank branch, on October 26, 2022 in Paris ( AFP / Emmanuel DUNAND)
Oxfam, Friends of the Earth and Notre Affaire à Tous also gave notice on Wednesday to the bank to cease its support for the expansion of fossil fuels.
By being the “first European financier and the 5th in the world” for the “development” of fossil energies, with “55 billion dollars in financing granted between 2016 and 2021” only for new oil and gas projects, the bank does not respect its “duty of vigilance” on environmental risks, estimates the associations.
“We (the banks, editor’s note) can decide at any time to stop the financing of fossil fuels overnight. But (…) immediately that raises a question of responsibility in the conduct of what must be a transition as a such”, replied on FranceInfo Philippe Brassac, managing director of Crédit Agricole SA.