Protect us from climate-wrecking finance

UK banks and insurers continue to fuel the climate crisis by lending to and insuring harmful fossil fuel projects. Not only do those projects threaten our planet, but they come with financial risks for which we are all on the hook.

As more countries adopt net zero and we burn less oil and gas, fossil fuel projects will decline in value, which means that the banks and investors that financed these projects likely won’t make their money back. And when banks suffer losses, it’s usually us, the public, who are forced to bail them out.

The UK can, and should, lead the way tackling those risks and steering the international reform of rules governing finance. We therefore call on the Bank of England and the government to:

• First, introduce a new rule that forces banks to hold £1 in funds as insurance for every £1 they give to risky, climate-wrecking projects. This would mean banks have the money to cover any future losses from fossil fuel projects they finance — removing the risk of needing a public bailout and making investing in these projects much less attractive.
• Second, introduce a lower interest rate for green projects, to support investments that make us less reliant on volatile and dirty fossil fuels, such as affordable, clean energy and insulating our leaky homes.
• And third, use the UK’s international influence to advocate changing the global rules that govern finance.
  

Can you join us and call on the government and the Bank to act to protect us from risky dirty finance, and redirect money towards green investments we need?

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