Well Fargo is the fifth major U.S. bank to announce a commitment to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. The big bank recently joined the Net-Zero Banking Alliance following Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase.
While the International Energy Agency released its annual World Energy Outlook “reaffirming that achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and staying within 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming” means immediately stopping the expansion of fossil fuel development.
“The world’s top four fossil banks are now all members of the NZBA,” Jason Opeña Disterhoft, senior climate and energy campaigner at Rainforest Action Network. “Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Citi and Bank of America must now put their money where their mouth is, by immediately ending support for companies expanding fossil fuels.”
But Well Fargo’s announcement “did not include targets for phasing out the bank’s funding of fossil fuels, a critical part of reining in its contribution to the climate crisis,” according to the Sierra Club.
“Big banks like Wells Fargo want credit for taking climate action when really they’re just kicking the can down the road,” said Ben Cushing, Fossil-Free Finance campaign manager at Sierra Club, said. “Achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 means stopping financing for the expansion of fossil fuels now. Without a plan to do that, commitments like this are totally inadequate to meet the scale and urgency of the climate crisis.”
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