Bank of England’s Carney Tells Davos, Banks Will Cut Credit from Industries with Carbon Emissions

Jan. 21, 2020 (EIRNS)—Speaking today on a panel entitled “Solving the Green Growth Equation,” at the World Economic Forum at Davos, outgoing Bank of England Governor Mark Carney—incoming UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance—argued that sustainability and carbon footprints are now key issues for global investors, Yahoo Finance reported. These are issues that are no longer corporate social responsibility or niche issues, he lectured, but rather are fundamental “value drivers.”

With major investors, he asserted,

“this is becoming the question: What’s your plan to get to net zero [carbon emissions]? ... That will determine where capital is flowing, obviously influenced by public opinion, pressure, and government policy as well. But that moving from the periphery to absolutely the mainstream is what’s going to drive transition, and, might I add, jobs.”

Carney, who is in league with BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink in

“reshaping” the global financial climate to suck investments into the green boondoggle (see Morning Briefing for Jan. 21), emphasized that the Bank of England “and a number of other central banks will do this as well—stress testing their banks for a transition to net zero. The world’s largest and most complex financial system, that’s what we’re doing. At the core of the system now these questions are being asked. If you’re on the right side or the wrong side, and if you’re on the wrong side”

—you don’t buy Malthusianism, for example—“what are you going to do about it? I think we’re seeing a fundamental reshaping of the financial system,” Carney said.

Coherent with this drivel, which is dominating the Davos summit, Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) presented a white paper there which asserts that decarbonizing existing portfolios isn’t happening quickly enough to solve the crisis, Barron’s reported. Entitled “Becoming Climate Aware: Mobilizing Capital To Help Meet Climate Change Goals: An Investor’s Perspective,” the report urges investors to act now—not wait for legislation or regulations to be approved. UBS’s report presents a “climate aware framework” for institutional, government and individual investors which will ostensibly close the “climate finance gap.” It points to estimates by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), claiming that more than $90 trillion is needed for infrastructure investment alone to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement—but likely intended to bail out the banking system’s massive gambling debts.