Scotland’s Finance Secretary has said consumers can “vote with their feet” if they are unhappy with the plans of banks to tackle climate change.
Kate Forbes welcomed an announcement from Chancellor Rishi Sunak that most listed companies and financial institutions in the UK will be forced to publish their plans to support a move to net zero.
Speaking after an event at Cop26, Ms Forbes said those using services could potentially punish firms that aren’t doing enough for the environment, but added that it should be made easy for companies to publish their plans.
Ultimately, consumers will vote with their feet
Kate Forbes
“First, we need to make it as easy as possible for them to (publish plans),” she said.
“That requires transparency, openness and a recognition of financial standards that all financial institutions should be held to.
“The second thing is that, ultimately, consumers will vote with their feet.
“We all have a responsibility and a recognition that if we want our financial institutions, and we all presumably bank with somebody, then we can all demand action from financial institutions, knowing that it is important that they too mobilise private finance to meet our climate change ambitions.”
Ms Forbes added: “If we’re serious about meeting our climate change ambitions, we need to see meaningful, tangible action over the course of Cop26 and that includes mobilising private finance.
“We know that public funding won’t be sufficient to meet our objectives in isolation and therefore it does need to leverage in private funding and I think all major financial institutions have a responsibility to set out how they are supporting the move to net zero.”
The Chancellor also said on Wednesday the pledge to deliver 100 billion US dollars (£73 billion) per year to developing countries to tackle climate change by 2023, three years behind schedule.
Ms Forbes said keeping the promise was “absolutely essential”, adding that former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney – now an adviser to the Prime Minister on climate finance – told the same event that there was around £95 trillion in finance available to tackle climate change.
