JPMorgan Chase, the New York bank and PNC Financial will no longer finance new coal mines around the world and will end support for new coal-fired power plants being developed in "high income" countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
The banks announced these new policies restricting their activity supporting mountaintop removal, a particularly destructive coal mining process. It comes after banks such as Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America announced commitments to back away from financing the coal industry, although the language in each firm's environmental statements tends to vary.
"The major banks are first movers on this," said Amanda Starbuck, climate and energy program director of the Rainforest Action Network, an environmental group that has pushed for banks to exit financing coal development projects. "The bank that has the furthest to go is Goldman Sachs; the bank has not cut financing for coal mining on a sector-wide basis."
Outside of rich countries, JPMorgan will back only coal-fired power plants that employ "ultra-supercritical" technology that is more efficient than conventional systems. The bank will consider on a "case-by-case basis" coal plants that capture carbon dioxide emissions and prevent their release into the atmosphere
"We believe the financial services sector has an important role to play as governments implement policies to combat climate change," JPMorgan said in the document.
JPMorgan also plans to shrink its credit exposure in the "medium term" to companies that generate most of their revenue from coal mining and sales. The bank said it expects its business to reflect the "decline of coal as an energy source."
The White House this year issued a moratorium of new leases for coal mined on federal lands, a blow to coal producers. California pensions, under Gov. Jerry Brown's 2015 law, will divest from investments in coal companies by mid-2017. Somewhere along the line, financing the coal sector became nearly tantamount to backing firearms makers.
© 2017 Jobs & Hire All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
