Wednesday 21 May: More than 180 shareholders have joined with Market Forces to call on Macquarie Group to disclose the full extent of its financing for fossil fuels and outline how the global financial services company will ensure alignment with its climate commitments.
Macquarie claims it is a leader in financing for renewable energy, but is failing to disclose the full extent of its investments in coal, oil and gas, while quietly backing the biggest gas fracking development in Australia’s history.
Earlier this year, Macquarie became Australia’s only institution to follow major United States banks withdrawing from the Net Zero Banking Alliance, a global banking initiative to limit climate change.
Will van de Pol, CEO, Market Forces said:
“Shareholders want Macquarie to come clean on its financing of fossil fuel expansion, which undermines the company’s climate commitments.”
“Macquarie is emerging as the ‘drill baby drill’ bank of Australia. It’s financing companies like Empire Energy and Tamboran Resources to develop dangerous fracking in the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Basin, completely at odds with the Paris Agreement’s goals to limit climate change.”
Shale gas fracking is a risky process imported to Australia from the United States by companies including Empire Energy and Tamboran. The environmental and health dangers of fracking have led to it being banned in 15 countries globally, as well as in Victoria, Tasmania and most of Western Australia.
Beetaloo risks becoming Australia’s largest and highest-emitting gas field, estimated to produce 1.1 billion tonnes of carbon pollution, equal to operating Australia’s largest coal power plant, Eraring, for more than 83 years.
The Macquarie shareholders and Market Forces have filed a resolution to be voted on at the company’s July annual general meeting, demanding Macquarie disclose the full extent of its fossil fuel exposures, which leave it vulnerable to climate-related financial risks.
Shareholders are calling on Macquarie to outline how it will assess fossil fuel companies and projects within its portfolios to ensure they don’t breach the Group’s commitment to align its financing activity with the global goal of net zero emissions by 2050.
“Macquarie has more than doubled its exposure to oil and gas in the past two years and is heading in the wrong direction when Australia’s big four banks are all winding back fossil fuel lending,” Mr van de Pol said.
“Macquarie’s increasing finance for dangerous fossil fuel expansion is undermining its claim to be supporting the critical shift to clean energy.”
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