The eventual death of oil and thermal coal won’t come from environmentalists or even directly from renewable energy–it will come when big banks decide to stop financing it, rendering it ‘unbankable’. Two years ago, one of the biggest financiers of fossil fuels, Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), made history after becoming the first big U.S. bank to rule out financing new oil exploration or drilling in the Arctic, as well as new thermal coal mines anywhere in the world. GS’ environmental policy declared climate change as one of the “most significant environmental challenges of the 21st century” and pledged to help its clients manage climate impacts more effectively, including through the sale of weather-related catastrophe bonds. The giant Wall Street bank also committed to invest $750 billion over the next decade into areas that focus on climate transition. Months later, the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock Inc. (NYSE:BLK), declared its intention […]

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