Stéphane Place, edited by Ophelie Artaud
modified to
11:14 a.m., November 08, 2022
“Cooperate or perish, sign a climate solidarity pact or collective suicide.” Antonio Guterres, the UN Secretary General, did not mince words on Monday at the COP 27 podium. According to a report released on Monday, the countries of the South, on the front line in the face of global warming, will need 2 trillion dollars per year by 2030 to finance their climate actions, nearly half of which will come from external investors. On Monday, Emmanuel Macron called for keeping the commitments made and forbidding any exploitation of the deep seabed.
Ethical and eco-responsible financial partners
The Head of State, back in France, is today receiving 50 managers from the most polluting French industrial sites. Air Liquide, Saint-Gobain, Total, Lafarge… large groups that represent 10% of greenhouse gas emissions in France. Objective for Emmanuel Macron: convince them to invest massively to decarbonize their company.
Leading by example is also what the mayors of fourteen French towns are asking banks to do. Among the signatories, the mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, of Lyon, Grégory Doucet, of Grenoble, Éric Piolle or even of Rennes, Strasbourg, Poitiers, Annecy, Arcueil, Bensançon, Bourg-en-Bresse, Tours, Villeurbanne but also the metropolis of Greater Poitiers. In a column published on Sunday, they explain that they want ethical and eco-responsible financial partners. Criteria that will now weigh in the choice of banks in their communities. Another committed mayor, that of Bordeaux, Pierre Hurmic. He explained their project at the microphone of Europe 1.
A precise questionnaire for companies
For them, the objective is that these banks “stop encouraging and financing companies which continue to be driving forces in the field of hydrocarbon extraction. We ask them in particular to answer a very precise questionnaire, in detailed and sourced, on the commitments they are ready to make on eco-responsibility, but also on other criteria which seem important to us, such as equality between women and men in their company or their position vis-à-vis live in tax havens”, explains Pierre Hurmic.
“It seems important that the partners of the city of Bordeaux show themselves to be exemplary in these fields. What we are doing through this questionnaire is a kind of virtuous competition”, he adds. The idea is therefore to encourage companies to be more ethical, at the risk of losing these large customers. “And the fact that fourteen mayors of large cities have committed themselves to this field proves that the subject is still worrying. Cities are big borrowers”, recalls Pierre Hurmic at the microphone of Europe 1.