With the ink hardly dry on a landmark pledge by the finance industry to fight climate change, the world’s biggest banks are making clear they plan to stand by their fossil-fuel clients.
Take JPMorgan Chase & Co., the leading arranger of bonds for oil, gas and coal companies. In the weeks since the bank in October joined Mark Carney’s global alliance to achieve net-zero emissions from finance, it has underwritten some $2.5 billion in bond deals for companies like Gazprom PJSC and Continental Resources Inc., equivalent to the same period in previous years.
