{"id":1696355,"date":"2022-10-15T06:05:05","date_gmt":"2022-10-15T10:05:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1696355"},"modified":"2022-10-16T14:13:29","modified_gmt":"2022-10-16T18:13:29","slug":"australias-largest-bank-says-it-will-stop-banking-with-companies-with-no-climate-change-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/australias-largest-bank-says-it-will-stop-banking-with-companies-with-no-climate-change-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s Largest Bank Says It Will Stop Banking With Companies With No Climate Change Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Faustralias-largest-bank-says-it-will-stop-banking-with-companies-with-no-climate-change-plan%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1696355&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>One of Australia\u2019s big four banks has pledged to its shareholders that it won\u2019t bank with large customers who have no climate transition plan.<\/p>\n<p>Without providing detail to its pledge, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-commonwealth-bank-of-australia\">Commonwealth Bank of Australia<\/a> (CBA) Chairman, Paul O\u2019Malley, told shareholders that the bank was taking its climate commitments seriously.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cClimate change is a major focus of the Board and Management,\u201d O\u2019Malley <a href=\"https:\/\/www.commbank.com.au\/articles\/newsroom\/2022\/10\/cba-agm-chairman-speech.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">said<\/a> at an AGM meeting on Oct. 12.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs Australia\u2019s largest bank, we have an important role to play in supporting Australia\u2019s transition to a net-zero emissions economy by 2050.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLarge customers that choose not to have a transition plan (on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-climate-change\">climate change<\/a>) by 2025, we will not be able to bank them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This follows the release of the bank\u2019s first climate report in August, in which it outlined its climate strategy.<\/p>\n<p>One of the ways the bank intends to achieve its net-zero target is by helping customers \u201cmake their own changes\u201d\u2014with products tailored to encourage people to make more energy-efficient choices, such as buying solar panels.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have aligned our temperature ambition to 1.5 degrees and joined the Net-Zero Banking Alliance,\u201d O\u2019Malley said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have strengthened our measurement and reporting on financed emissions, aligned with the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials standard, covering 80 percent of our 2020 lending portfolio.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> Rising Interest Rates <\/p>\n<p>While the bank\u2019s response on climate change dominated the meeting\u2014with around a dozen climate activists rallying outside the meeting as well as some briefly disrupting the meeting\u2014O\u2019Malley said that both climate change and rising interest rates were issues Australia had not seen in years.<\/p>\n<p>This comes off the back of fears of a global recession as markets face rising interest rates, high inflation, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the energy crisis in Europe.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, CEO Matt Comyn told shareholders that official interest rates are close to reaching their peak.<\/p>\n<p>Comyn said he backed the reserve bank raising interest rates as he says it was needed to put the brakes on the economy and quell inflation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs we sit here today, the overall portfolio and the economy is very strong, and hence the reason why they\u2019re continuing to lift the cash rate. We are at beyond full employment, but absolutely recognise the concern and anxiety for many customers with rising costs of living, with interest rates,\u201d Comyn said, reported AAP.<\/p>\n<p>Comyn added that CBA economists were predicting another interest rate increase of 0.25 percent in November\u2014that would take the cash rate to 2.85 percent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe think rates will be on hold from there, but there are many others who believe rates will continue to go higher than that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re very confident about the overall outlook for the Australian economy but recognise that every individual customer\u2019s circumstances are different, and we need to take that into account.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>   <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/author-henry-jom\"><\/a> <\/p>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<p>Henry Jom is an Australian based reporter covering local Australia news. Contact him at henry.jom@epochtimes.com.au.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of Australia\u2019s big four banks has pledged to its shareholders that it won\u2019t bank with large customers who have no climate transition plan. Without providing detail to its pledge, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) Chairman, Paul O\u2019Malley, told shareholders that the bank was taking its climate commitments seriously. \u201cClimate change is a major focus &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1695421,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1696355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bongino-report"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1696355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1696355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1696355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1695421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1696355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1696355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1696355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}