"Banks vote to loosen climate coalition membership rules", 15 April 2025

"The world's leading bank coalition looking to help tackle climate change has voted to ditch some of its more stringent membership rules to better reflect the slow pace of change in the real economy, its chair told Reuters.

The UN-backed Net Zero Banking Alliance has been canvassing members over changes to its rules amid the withdrawal of some of the coalition's biggest banks and as the United States leads calls to abandon climate action in the financial sector.

Banks voted to abandon a more stringent target to align all sector financing with 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average by mid-century and replace it with a more flexible ambition to align their businesses with a well-below 2 degrees target, albeit striving for 1.5 degrees...

The overhaul reflects NZBA's next phase as it moves from primarily a target-setting organisation to one which helps banks implement those changes through webinars, sectoral papers and other capacity-building activities...

Over 80% of NZBA members voted while 90% of the votes cast were in favour of the proposals...."