We have awesome news. Standard Chartered bank has just announced it will not fund any new coal-fired power plant projects, including expansions, in any location!
Together with Market Forces and organizations from around the world we have been campaigning hard to convince Standard Chartered to rule out all new coal. Last month we took out a full page ad in the Asian Financial Times and tens of thousands of people have taken online action to call on the bank to do exactly what it just has!
To illustrate how significant this is, since the start of this decade Standard Chartered had funded over 10,000 Megawatts of new coal power plants. Before its policy update, the bank was in line to finance three new coal power plants in Vietnam that would have added 700 million tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere each year. This is a huge change of direction and one we desperately needed as we fight to prevent new dirty coal power being built around the world.
Decisions about how the world sources its future energy needs will make or break our ability to contain global warming. Standard Chartered’s policy not only removes a critical source of finance for new coal power plants, but sends a powerful signal to other banks that need to do the same.
While some banks have ruled out funding coal under certain conditions, this is the only policy that recognises the clear, scientific reality: if we’re to avoid runaway climate change we need to stop building dirty new coal power plants.
Standard Chartered felt the full weight of public expectation, and understood we wanted the bank to be a clean energy leader.
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