Illustration: Kate Dehler
UBS Banker’s Frustration Exposes Cracks in World of Climate Finance
The world’s biggest banks are quietly hanging on to carbon-intensive clients because of what they see as unrealistic demands from regulators and civil society — and the threat to their fees.
Judson Berkey didn’t hold back.
It was early February and the UBS Group AG banker had WebEx-dialed into a meeting held on the 17th floor of the Japanese Financial Services Agency’s building in the Kasumigaseki district of central Tokyo. The closed-door gathering with representatives of the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and public officials from around the world was billed as a “check-in” for regulators to ask key market participants how they were dealing with the growing tapestry of rules and guidelines around transitioning the economy away from high-carbon assets.