Paris | The companies in the coal sector that are the most supported by banks and investors do not have, with a few rare exceptions, a credible exit plan for this polluting energy, the French NGO Reclaim Finance denounced on Tuesday.
According to her, 94% of these companies do not have an exit plan that meets the criteria established in the “How to exit coal” report that she established with the German NGO Urgewald.
Among the 47 companies analyzed, a third continue to develop new coal production capacities and more than half do not plan to exit this energy in time to comply with the Paris Agreement, i.e. by 2030 for the countries of the European Union and other members of the OECD and 2040 for the rest of the world.
“The remaining companies are shirking their responsibility by selling mines and power plants or converting them to other unsustainable energies such as gas and biomass instead of closing them permanently”, criticized Reclaim Finance.
To carry out this study, the NGO analyzed the 47 coal companies the most financially supported by Société Générale, BNP Paribas and Natixis, both as a bank and as an investor, by Crédit Agricole and Unicredit, as as a bank, and by Amundi and Axa as an investor.
These companies notably include the French energy company Engie and the Swiss miners Glencore and the Brazilian Vale.
“A growing number of financial players are quick to refuse exclusion on the grounds of engaging companies to push them to transform themselves, but it is clear that the major collective engagement initiatives have not produced conclusive results,” for lack of sufficiently precise requests (…) and prospects for sanctions ”, regretted Guillaume Pottier, campaign manager at Reclaim Finance.
The NGO asks financial players who have committed to excluding companies that do not have a credible coal exit plan before the end of 2021 to sanction them from January 1, 2022.