Switzerland – Banks risk becoming new fossil fuel villains in 2022

Major banks, like UBS, are coming under increasing pressure to clean up their investments.

As businesses were gearing up for the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow last year, one of Europe’s larger banks released an update on how it planned to do its bit to combat global warming.

Switzerland’s UBS group said it had become a founding member of the new Net Zero Banking Alliance, a UN-convened club of mostly western banks committed to decarbonising their portfolios.“We’ll publish a comprehensive climate action plan later this year setting science-based targets, including intermediate milestones,” UBS said.

This was in April. But there was no new action plan by the end of the year. The bank says it is now aiming for March.

One explanation for the delay is that the climate programme had to fit in with a broader strategic vision for UBS, which its newish chief executive, Ralph Hamers, is due to unveil in February.

Source: https://www.swissinfo.ch