Top fossil fuel lender JPMorgan joins UN climate action finance plan

NEW YORK, Oct 8 (Reuters) – JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) mentioned Friday it was becoming a member of the United Nation’s Web-Zero Banking Alliance, a bunch of worldwide banks which have dedicated to dramatically decreasing their carbon financing and funding actions.

As the biggest U.S. financial institution and a serious lender to the fossil gas business, JPMorgan has been criticized for not becoming a member of the group, which launched in April, sooner. The announcement comes forward of subsequent month’s UN Local weather Change Convention, generally known as COP 26, in Glasgow.

JPMorgan adopted rivals Financial institution of America (BAC.N), Citigroup (C.N), Morgan Stanley (MS.N) and others in aligning its local weather plan with the UN’s Race to Zero marketing campaign.

“We’re becoming a member of the Web Zero Banking Alliance as a result of we help the ambition for larger local weather motion, the sharing of greatest practices and a collaborative strategy between the private and non-private sectors to achieve this aim,” Marisa Buchanan, JPMorgan’s world head of sustainability, mentioned in an announcement.

Member banks are required to submit science-based local weather plans that cowl all sorts of emissions, embrace 2030 interim targets and decide to clear reporting and accounting. Banks have 18 months to set the 2030 interim targets.

Critics say the group’s targets are too weak and versatile.

“With no plan to cease funding the growth of fossil fuels, commitments like this are fully insufficient,” mentioned Ben Cushing, fossil-free finance marketing campaign supervisor on the Sierra Membership.

In Could, JPMorgan set out mid-term, carbon discount targets for shoppers, together with asking oil and gasoline shoppers cut back the depth of direct and oblique emissions. L1N2MZ2S4

Reporting by Elizabeth Dilts Marshall; Enhancing by Cynthia Osterman

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