The word “direct” there sounds a bit suspicious.
It means that they aren’t halting lending to firms which subsequently finance oil and gas. Just not directly the the oil and gas companies.
Eg: they could lend to an equipment maker which has a finance arm which in turn enables their customers to borrow money to buy equipment, and some of those customers are in the fossil fuels industry.
This is actually pretty good if they live up to it.
So just lowering risk exposure.
Yes, because they see that we need to actually leave a bunch of proved reserves in the ground, and that they will at some point be forced to do exactly that. So lowering the loss they take when it happens is a good move.
“Transition risks” of climate change (part of indirect climate change/ESG related risks). It’s about how to manage your portfolio based on different green economy adaptation models (normal/organic, late & hasty, none at all).
Soon, the water wars will begin.
This is how you know they’re seeing really scary data.
The data they’re seeing has been public for ages; if we want to stabilize temperatures at 2°C above pre-industrial, it means leaving the bulk of proved reserves of coal in the ground, as well as half or more of proved oil and gas reserves, along with taking action on fluorinated gases and non-fossil-fuel sources of methane. This means that success for climate action will require shutting down the oil and gas industry before they can pay back long-term loans. They’re responding to the evidence that the political power to do so is starting to accrue to climate activists.