Standard Bank Group Ltd., Africa’s biggest lender by assets, plans to raise as much as 300 billion rands ($20 billion) by 2026 to help fund renewable energy projects, even as it remains open to supporting fossil fuels.
The Johannesburg-based lender pledged to achieve a net-zero carbon emissions target from its own operations by 2040 and from its portfolio of financed emissions by 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement, the company said in a statement on Wednesday outlining its climate goals.
“Over the past several centuries, Africa has borne very considerable economic and human costs for other regions,” Standard Bank Chief Executive Officer Sim Tshabalala said in the statement. “A total or immediate ban on further transitional projects in Africa in order to help reduce environmental pressure in much richer regions would be a cost too far.”
Banks across the world are slowly adjusting their business models after decades spent enabling some of the world’s worst emitters of greenhouse gases. Though for Africa, bankers and policymakers want to ensure funding for fossil fuels such as natural gas, which they say is key to the continent’s energy security.
In countries including Mozambique and Tanzania, more than $50 billion worth of gas projects are being discussed with companies including TotalEnergies SE and Equinor ASA. In Kenya, where the national electricity grid is already 90% renewable, authorities are considering converting the remaining fossil-fuel power plants to use liquefied natural gas.
Standard Bank will fund energy and mining projects under “certain tightly defined circumstances” to achieve a just transition for the continent, it said.
SOURCE: Bloomberg
IMAGE SOURCE: Pixabay
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