Following <\/span><\/b>President Xi\u2019s announcement<\/span><\/b><\/a><\/u> at the United Nations General Assembly<\/u> that China \u201cwill not build new coal-fired power projects abroad\u201d on September 21<\/span><\/b>st<\/span><\/b>, the Bank of China published a statement <\/span><\/b>on its website<\/span><\/b><\/a><\/u> three days later announcing that \u201cstarting in the fourth quarter of 2021, the Bank of China will no longer finance new coal mining and new coal-fired power projects abroad, except for contracted projects\u201d.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n <\/i>The Positives:<\/p>\n <\/i>The Negatives:<\/p>\n If Bank of China wants to fully put an end to the financing of the expansion of the coal industry, the end of direct financing is only a first step since the vast majority of the financing goes through the indirect general financing of coal developers, those companies still planning new coal globally. The latest financial figures published last February indicate that between October 2018 and October 2020, Bank of China financed over 100 of the companies in the <\/span>Global Coal Exit List<\/span><\/a><\/u> to the tune of <\/span>33 billion USD<\/span><\/a><\/u>, making it the fifth largest coal banker worldwide. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div> Bank of China scores in the Coal Policy Tool<\/strong><\/p>\n This table presents the coal scores of Bank of China based on five criteria of the Coal Policy Tool<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div> Bank of China must clarify its public statement and withdraw from the seven ongoing deals it is involved in. Yet, this won\u2019t be enough for Bank of China to really help China meet its target of reaching peak carbon emissions by 2030 and achieving carbon neutrality by 2060, even less if the bank intends to align with the climate objectives of the Paris Agreement. To do so, an immediate next step for Bank of China is to end the direct financing of new coal projects in China as well as the indirect financing of coal developers globally, and join the eight international banks which have already done so like Credit Agricole or BNP Paribas.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n
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Our analysis: an important step but still a long way to go <\/b><\/h1><\/span>
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<\/p>\nOur conclusion <\/span><\/span><\/b><\/h2><\/span>