Irish-based banks invest almost €6bn in climate-harming industries in poorer countries

www.independent.ie

8 comments

Ugh 🤦‍♀️
Typical island mentality, what happens there won't affect us here. Hope the sea level rises soon.
- Greedy banks pouring money into fossil fuels is hardly only an Irish problem. Globally the banks invested over a 100 times more into fossil fuels then just Ireland. Just to make sure you blaim the right people.
  https://www.bankingonclimatechaos.org/
- People are allowing for this to happen, aren't they? Maybe when they are touched by the consequences we, as society, will react.
- Quite the opposite. Ireland is quite outward looking with strong ties to multiple other regions, like the USA, EU and UK.
  In fact I would say the most successful islands are those that realize they are small in a big world.
Ireland needs to tackle this by getting EU-wide consensus. It already has tough climate requirements for domestic banks, these banks are foreign subsidiaries (mostly American) based in Dublin to be in the EU. If just one EU country gets tough on them, they'll move to another. This action needs to be tied to their access to Europe & done at the EU-level.
- Since they are US banks, they would just move the financing to the US, which is no problem as most of it is already fairly US centric. That is also true for all large EU banks. They all are also in the US and other countries.
  The other big problem is that the EU still uses fossil fuels, so cutting it is not possible without causing supply problems, if not done right.
  
  Since they are US banks, they would just move the financing to the US
  No, they are in Ireland because the EU requires some of their operations to physically be located in the EU, to have access to the EU single market.