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Change finance, not the climate – Friends Newsletter 2019 #5

20 September 2019

Reading level: Beginner

Reading Time: 10 min.

Change finance, not the climate – Read our Friends Newsletter for Septembre 2019

Today, the Global Climate Strike is happening again: millions of people all around the world are stepping up to support young climate strikers. Together, they will sound the alarm and show politicians that business as usual is no longer an option.

At Finance Watch, we want to contribute to this week of action with our guide “9 financial reforms that Climate Strikers should demand”, including cartoons to illustrate each topic. A shortened version of this guide is also available as an infographic. Have a look!

Everybody needs to understand how important it is to change our financial system, if we want to stop climate change. For decades, it has exacerbated the climate crisis due to the domination of very large financial institutions focused on short-term profit and driven by shareholder primacy.

Please help us to spread the word: You can use these links to share our guide on Twitter on Facebook or just forward this email. Thanks!

Here is what we propose:

Redirect financial flows by defining what is clean and what is not
Make companies report on their social and environmental impacts
Let people decide where their money really goes
Penalise polluting activities
Divest taxpayers’ money from the fossil economy
Bring down fossil risk within financial institutions
Unlock public finance for climate action
Curb short-termism in financial markets
Re-diversify our financial system

You can find all the details in our guide “9 financial reforms that Climate Strikers should demand”

European Green Deal

At the same time, there are some positive signs that politicians are starting to take the climate crisis seriously: The future European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has proposed a ‘European Green Deal’ as part of her political guidelines for the next European Commission 2019-2024.

We believe that a real, game-changing Green Deal is feasible in the short-term – but only if the European Commission can succeed in overhauling the conditions for both private and public financing.

And we have already put some first thoughts together with six other civil society organisations on how this could be done: If you are interested, have a look at our list of recommendations to be considered by the future European Commission to implement its ‘European Green Deal’.

Thanks to the European Environmental Bureau, WWF Europe, Greentervention, Positive Money Europe, and Fondation Nicolas Hulot for teaming up with us.

In Short

Rather depressing #RevolvingDoors news arrived this week as well:
The European Banking Authority (EBA) has rubber-stamped a move by its Executive Director, Adam Farkas, to one of the biggest European financial lobby groups (AFME). It only imposed a ridiculously short cooling-off period and weak conditions. We are outraged and we made ourselves heard!Read our letter to the EBA, our press release, or one of the many articles we had in the press: Financial Times, Bloomberg, Reuters, Mediapart, Agefi, Les Echos, Handelsblatt,
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