LONDON, March 26 (Reuters) - ING has become the first

systemically important global bank to have its climate goals

validated as being in line with efforts to limit global warming

to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the body responsible for awarding the

standard said on Wednesday.

The bank said in a statement it had met the threshold for

targets across its lending to fossil fuels, power generation,

cement, steel, automotive, aviation and the commercial real

estate sector.

The Dutch lender had said in 2022 it would phase out

upstream oil and gas financing by 2040 and last year further

restricted access to general lending and bond issuance for some

oil and gas companies.

"As the first global systemically important bank with a

validated science-based target, ING is showing how large

financial institutions can support climate stabilisation in the

real economy," Nate Aden, head of Financial Standards at the

Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi), said.

Validation of ING's decarbonisation efforts comes as bankers

and policymakers debate whether 1.5C, seen for a decade as key

warming threshold, should remain a feasible target for banks as

many country climate plans and sector policies point to a

considerable overshoot.

This month the world's leading climate group for banks

proposed abandoning 1.5C as its north star for members' climate

plans after several large lenders exited the group or

scaled-back their net-zero ambitions.

However the validation still brings prestige in the industry

and also feeds into lending choices and the supply of finance.

For companies, some banks say they will only support companies

from certain sectors that have SBTi targets.

SBTi, a voluntary group which includes consultants,

technical experts and NGOs and has a scientific advisory board,

has emerged as the authority on corporate climate targets.

It says sector targets should be aligned to 1.5C, unless a

1.5C pathway is not available, in which case a well-below-2C

pathway can be used instead.

Countries agreed in the 2015 Paris Agreement to strive to

limit temperature increases to within 1.5C above the 1850-1900

average to help limit the impact of climate change.