In short:
Australia’s largest mortgage lender is no longer offering money to fossil fuel companies that are not aligned with the Paris Agreement.
The bank announced the new direction in its latest climate report, published on the same day it posted close to $10 billion in full-year net profit.
What’s next?
The spotlight is now on the other big banks with a finance deal of about $750 million for oil and gas giant Santos on the table.
For a fossil fuel firm, it would look like a binding commitment to leave a large chunk of their reserves in the ground and a plan to end extraction over a couple decades while returning profits to shareholders in the meantime