Warren calls for regulators to 'crack down' on Wall Street's fossil fuel financing
The Massachusetts Democrat cited a recent report by environmental group Sierra Club and think tank the Center for American Progress, which calculated that last year, leading banks and asset managers together were responsible for enough greenhouse gas emissions to put them in the company of leading global emitters.
"The volume of greenhouse gas emitted by the financial-services industry is outrageous. If it were a country it would rank as the fifth-largest emitter in the world," Warren
wrote in a tweet on Monday. "Regulators need to crack down on the financial sector's role in the #ClimateCrisis."
The
study in question established that the United States's 18 largest banks and asset managers financed the equivalent of 1.968 billion tons of carbon dioxide in 2020. If the sector were a country, the study found, that would make it the world's fifth-largest emitter behind China, the U.S., India, and Russia.
Climate hawks are turning to financial regulation as a means of stunting oil, gas, and coal production and reducing emissions, especially as more stringent congressionally authorized restrictions on the fossil fuel industry remain outstanding due to lack of consensus in Congress.
A number of major Wall Street firms have already voluntarily committed to restricting the financing of fossil fuels, with coal, the most emissions-intensive fuel commodity, being a prime target.
