Banks working to develop global standards on accounting for carbon emissions in bond or stock sale underwriting have voted to exclude most of these emissions from their own carbon footprint, Reuters reported. The majority of banks comprising an industry working group backed a plan earlier this month to exclude two-thirds of the emissions linked to their capital markets businesses from being attributed to them in carbon accounting, the sources said, following months of discord over the issue. If upheld, the decision would pit banks against environmental advocates, many of whom say the banking industry should assume full responsibility for the emissions generated by activities financed through bonds and stock sales, as it already does with loans. Almost half of the financing provided by the six biggest U.S. banks for top fossil fuel companies came from capital markets rather than direct lending between 2016 and 2022, according to environmental group Sierra Club.
