Bank of America announced on 31 December 2024 that it was withdrawing from the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, becoming the fourth major US bank to exit the United Nations-convened coalition in December alone. The departure follows those of Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo earlier in the month and came on the same day as Citigroup's.
BofA had been a founding member of the NZBA when the group was launched in April 2021, and its net-zero financing goal dated to the same period. The bank had publicly committed to aligning its lending and capital-markets activities with a 1.5-degree warming scenario under the framework's requirements, which include setting sector-specific financed-emissions targets and publishing regular progress disclosures.
NZBA AND GFANZ
The NZBA sits within the broader Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, an umbrella body convened by former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney that spans banks, asset managers, and insurers. The banking sub-group requires members to disclose financed-emissions data across high-emitting sectors such as power generation, oil and gas, and commercial real estate, and to report annually on progress toward interim 2030 targets.
Bank of America said it would maintain its involvement in GFANZ, the wider initiative.
Legal and political pressures have mounted on US banks over their participation in international climate groups. A coalition of Republican-led state attorneys general has pursued investigations into whether co-ordination within such alliances constitutes anticompetitive behaviour, while legislators in several states have advanced bills that would restrict public pension funds from doing business with institutions deemed to engage in ESG-related boycotts of fossil-fuel industries.
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