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Net-Zero Banking Alliance to vote on changing group aims

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To become a framework, rather than a 'membership-based

alliance'

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Follows exodus of large banks and U.S. political pressure

By Simon Jessop

LONDON, Aug 27 (Reuters) - The banking industry's main

group leading the sector's global effort to cut carbon emissions

plans to overhaul its structure, it said on Wednesday, after the

high-profile exit of many of its largest members.

The Net-Zero Banking Alliance, set up in 2021 ahead of

global climate talks in Glasgow, has proposed changing from

being a "membership-based alliance" to a "framework initiative".

Membership obligations have included making a commitment to

reach net-zero emissions by 2050, setting interim

emission-reduction targets for carbon-intensive sectors by 2030,

and annual progress reports.

Members will vote on the proposed change to the alliance's

status by the end of September.

Many large banks left the group after pressure from some U.S.

Republican politicians who said membership could be regarded as

a breach of antitrust rules.

Swiss lender UBS became the latest to leave earlier in

August, shortly after UK peers Barclays and HSBC and several

months after the largest U.S., Canadian, Australian and Japanese

banks.

In a statement on its website, the NZBA said its steering group

believed the proposed model was the best way to continue

supporting banks to remain resilient and accelerate "the real

economy transition" in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement on

climate change.

It said it would allow continued "engagement with the global

banking industry to develop further guidance and tools needed to

support them and their clients".

Lucie Pinson, director of non-profit Reclaim Finance, said

the changes were a way for the NZBA to avoid "the embarrassment

of losing relevance as its largest members gradually withdraw".

"For those working to protect the environment and the

climate, this underlines once again the limits of voluntary

corporate commitments and the urgent need for binding measures,

including strong regulatory action, to trigger real change," she

said.