Banks Taking Heat Over Lax Environmental Standards, Abundant Greenwash, Projects Funded - Reuters

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NEW YORK - Big Banks are finding it is not easy being green. Financial giants such as Merrill Lynch and Citigroup among others are under fire from environmental groups and some investors who complain they still fund power plants and other polluting projects despite adopting the Earth-friendly Equator Principles with much fanfare in 2003. Under these principles, lenders promise to rein in unsustainable development in emerging markets, such as logging in rain forests and strip mining. So far, though, green groups say there is little evidence the policies make any difference.

"Banks are making all the right sounds, adopting the principles and putting them on Web sites," said Michelle Chan- Fishel, who tracks green investing for Friends of the Earth. "At the same time, they're financing really controversial transactions." TXU Corp. of Dallas sparked the latest battle when it announced an US$11 billion plan to build 11 coal-burning power plants in Texas. Yet Merrill Lynch and Co. Inc. , Citigroup and Morgan Stanley -- three banks that have embraced the Equator Principles -- are leading the debt and stock transaction. Last month, Rainforest Action Network launched a campaign to pull the plug on the TXU plants, which would generate 78 million tons a year of carbon dioxide, by pressuring dozens of banks to refuse funding and appealing directly to bank chiefs.

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A TXU spokeswoman said the plants in the long run will lead to improved air quality in Texas and supply the state's growing power demands. TXU has committed to offset the new emissions by installing carbon-capture technology as it becomes available. The TXU plan is not the only one angering green groups. Banktrack, a global network of environmental groups that monitors Equator banks, says too many "dodgy deals" are getting funds.

Several banks are backing development of an open pit metals mine in the Philippines's Rapu Rapu island, which Banktrack contends will generate pollution that would threaten the livelihood of thousands of farmers and fishermen. "Common sense says this project is not compliant with sustainability," said Johan Frijns, Banktrack's Amsterdam-based coordinator. "We're going to make it very clear to banks that financing coal plants is not acceptable."

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http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/39771/story.htm

[YankeyMCC]

1. k n r

[phantom power]

2. Yeah. "TXU has committed to offset new emissions..

by installing carbon-capture technology as it becomes available."

Which it won't. They may as well have said "we'll install Maxwell's CO2 filtering demon as soon as the thaumaturgical technology becomes available."

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3. No, no no!!!

I have it on good authority that TXU is developing their own proprietary technology - the Chthonic Charbequed Charbon Chompers.

Whenever the plants are running they'll deploy from little enchanted tin huts which stand on posts jutting above the smokestacks and just make all that pesky GHG go away!!!!

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4. To think that I doubted them. I am ashamed.

:eyes: