Some big Banks suddenly moved away from associating with the United Nations climate lending initiatives

At COP26, (see The Paris Agreement), in Glasgow Scotland, in November 2021, a United Nations financial program, called the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net-Zero (GFANZ) was officially sanctioned. It was to further coordinate lending and investments by big global financial institutions and lenders with countries that needed financing for climate change programs and initiatives. This alliance is seen by the Paris agreement as crucial to effectively address climate mitigation goals.

Together with GFANZ the United Nations formed a group called the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) in 2021,which essentially became a subsidiary of GFANZ. This was a group designed for and consisted of several of the world’s major Banks. The purpose was to get these institutions, specifically, to adjust their lending practices to better facilitate nation’s efforts to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, in line with the Paris Agreement.

Initially the United Nations programs were well received, as cbc.ca noted, “more than 160 financial institutions signed onto a kind of climate super-group known as the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero.” However since December 2024, some major US banks, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and JP Morgan have all left the NZBA program. No official reasons were given for the exodus, but they claimed their action should not be seen as abandoning climate lending, since this could still be done outside of the alliance. Cbc.ca reports that with the Republican Donald Trump coming back to the White House, who recently espoused anti-climate views, may have induced the Banks to withdraw. Also in “a lawsuit and probes led by Republican lawmakers against giant investment firms like Blackrock, they allege these climate initiatives are uncompetitive”, may have caused the Banks to exit a situation they see as becoming a problem.

On the heels of what happened in the US, four Canadian Banks withdrew from the NZBA program in January, 2025, TD Bank, National Bank, BMO and CIBC withdrew and cbc.ca reports that “Financial institutions are pulling back following sustained criticism from US Republicans, on various climate alliances and the very concept of factoring environmental risks into their business operations.”

The NZBA ceased operations in 2025, as stated by The Guardian on the 3rd of October, “the global banking industry’s net zero target-setting group has announced it will shut down immediately, amid faltering climate commitments around the world,” and that “The Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), which was rocked by a wave of departures after Donald Trump’s re-election, said its remaining members had ‘voted to transition from a member-based alliance and to establish its guidance as a framework.'” With the closing of NZBA, GFANZ has reorganized itself and now playing a more subdued role in helping nations secure climate financing, particularly in developing countries.

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