CAMPAIGNERS are urging the public to view attempts to “spin banks as heroes” at Cop26 with deep suspicion, warning that financial firms now pledging to act have “made a killing from the climate crisis.”

Addressing the climate conference in Glasgow on finance day, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that financial institutions controlling 40 per cent of global assets would align themselves to the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C limit to global temperature increases.

Lauding the “historic” climate commitment by global firms, who control $130 trillion (£95tr) of financial assets, Mr Sunak said the agreement would help create a “huge pool of cash that could fund our net-zero transition,” including the move away from coal and the shift to electric cars.

However, social justice campaigners have raised concerns about the prospect of handing “ever more powers” to big business, and urged governments to regulate where the money goes. 

“Many of the financial institutions meeting today have made a killing from the climate and ecological crisis — we should be deeply suspicious of any attempt to spin them as the heroes,” Dorothy Guerrero, head of policy at Global Justice Now, said. 

“A just transition empowers the people on the front line, who are currently paying the price for a crisis they didn’t cause. And handing over ever more power to big business and financial institutions won’t cut it.

“Many of those in extreme energy poverty live in countries from which private companies extract huge energy resources, all while exploiting populations and violently suppressing dissent. 

“People in front-line communities have been sacrificed for fossil fuels. The same must not happen with renewables.”

The financial institutions are being brought together through the Glasgow Financial Alliance, led by former governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney, with 450 firms signing up so far. 

Mr Sunak also faced a backlash over his promise to turn Britain into the first ever net-zero aligned financial centre.

The Chancellor said as part of these plans, financial firms will be needed to publish a transition plan that sets out their path to green their businesses.

However, Greenpeace UK senior climate adviser Charlie Kronick warned that the new rules leave “plenty of wiggle room for financial institutions to continue with business as usual, rather than ‘rewiring’ the system as the Chancellor claims.”

Mr Kronick said that firms should instead be required by law to bring their investors in line with the 1.5°C limit. 

“Transition pathways must be genuinely science-based, not determined by what industry participants in cosy alliances consider best practice at any given time,” he added.

“The Chancellor is once again falling short of what the climate emergency requires.”

Grassroots climate campaign 350.org team lead Tommy Vickerstaff said: “Far from being the world’s ‘leading green finance centre,’ the City of London has a long history of being at the core of a global system that prioritises the profit of a few over the livelihoods of many, and also as a central driver of the climate crisis. 

“At the moment, the UK’s financial sector is at the very heart of the global fossil fuel industry. The UK has a responsibility to stop its banks profiting from destruction, and to channel money into real solutions instead.”