CIMB
IS FUNDING
A HOTTER EARTH
CIMB Group is failing its sustainability commitments by funding more coal plants in Asia.
CIMB, be a sustainable leader. get out of coal!
There’s one big problem with CIMB’s ‘Sustainability Summit’
CIMB is hosting the ‘Cooler Earth Sustainability Summit’ to showcase its commitment to building a cleaner world.
But there’s one horror twist: CIMB Group is also still funding climate-wrecking coal projects in Asia.
By funding more coal plants, CIMB Group is making the climate crisis worse. It’s not building a Cooler Earth -- it’s funding a Hotter Earth, with increasing climate change impacts such as cyclones, floods, and other extreme weather events.
CIMB Group can be a climate hero, but needs to live up to its sustainability commitments and stop funding coal plants in Asia.
FAILING ON ITS SUSTAINABILITY PLEDGE
When he signed up to the UN Principles for Responsible Banking in 2018, CIMB Group CEO Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Aziz pledged to use this influence to take action on the climate crisis. CIMB could be climate hero in Asia, but it’s already failing on this promise, lending USD $2.6 billion to coal from 2010-2019, and signing a loan agreement in July 2020 to fund a new massive coal power project in Indonesia, Jawa 9 and 10. The emissions from these coal power projects worsen climate change.
IGNORING CLIMATE RISK FLAGGED BY MALAYSIA’S CENTRAL BANK
The head of Malaysia’s central bank Bank Negara Malaysia, Governor Nor Shamsiah, said climate change “threatens our socio-economic prosperity here in Southeast Asia. It poses risks to the fiscal position of governments, the viability of businesses and the living standards of individuals.”
EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS AFFECTING MALAYSIANS
Global warming makes cyclones, floods, and other extreme weather events worse. Malaysians have experienced this -- from the 2014 floods in Kelantan and Terengganu which displaced 200,000 people, followed by massive floods in Penang and Kedah in 2017, and droughts in 2016.
OVER 100 FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS GETTING OUT OF COAL
Dozens of banks in recent years have restricted coal plant funding. This includes UOB and OCBC in Singapore, Mizuho Financial Group and SMBC in Japan, HSBC UK, Standard Chartered and many more. CIMB is being left behind.
LENDING MORE TO COAL THAN PEER BANKS IN MALAYSIA
Malaysia’s three big banks, Maybank, CIMB, and RHB, lent US $4.9 billion through bonds and loans to coal during 2010-2019. Over half of this came from CIMB, despite the huge risks coal causes the planet and our climate.
FUNDING SCANDALOUS COAL PLANT PROJECTS
CIMB has signed a loan agreement to fund the Jawa 9 and 10 coal plant in Indonesia. The plant which would cause the premature deaths of 4,700 people over the course of its lifetime. This project’s environmental permit is currently being challenged by Indonesian environmental groups for failing to comply with Indonesian law.
Sources: Jakarta Post, 2020 & Pojoksatu, 2020
Tell CIMB to end finance for the filthy coal industry
and instead, fund more clean energy in Asia.
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