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For Immediate Release
September, 15 2020, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Global Communications Director: global-comms@350.org
New Zealand Becomes First Country in the World To Require Financial Sector To Report on Climate Risks
Financial sector reporting on climate risks is a vital step to cut off the finance that enables fossil fuel companies to continue emitting
NEW YORK
350 Aotearoa applauds the government's announcement today that makes Aotearoa the first country in the world to require the financial sector to report on climate risks. 350 Aotearoa was among a majority of submitters that called on the government to introduce mandatory climate-related disclosure during its public consultation period in 2019.
350 Aotearoa Co-Director Erica Finnie said "Mandatory disclosure is a good first step to steer businesses and public funds away from unsustainable and risky investments in fossil fuel companies that are most responsible for climate change. It will also grow the social and political landscape for climate advocacy groups and the government to keep pushing our finance sector to cut their ties with coal, oil, and gas companies."
The government's announcement sets a regulatory framework by which our financial sector will need to disclose their risks - including investments in coal, oil, and gas companies that are increasingly underperforming based on sector decline and the financial risk of stranded assets. Over five years, while the S&P 500 Index rose by 48%, the S&P Oil & Gas Index fell by 63% and the Coal Index by 84%.
Finnie said "The financial sector plays a vital role in determining whether we can stop the worst impacts of climate change. The sector is currently keeping the world's biggest polluters afloat by investing in and lending to coal, oil, and gas companies. Our major banks, asset managers and public funds have the power to accelerate a just transition towards a low-carbon future by stopping the flow of money that enables fossil fuel companies to keep polluting, and instead shift our money towards sustainable solutions that will enable us to mitigate and adapt to climate change."
"The climate risk disclosure framework will set apart those institutions that have already committed to stop investing in and lending to fossil fuels, from those that continue to gamble with our savings and our ability to limit warming to 1.5degC," said Finnie.
In July 2020, after years of public pressure from 350 Aotearoa, Kiwibank became the first bank in Aotearoa to commit to a responsible banking policy that rules out coal, oil, and gas companies as business customers. In comparison, the Australian banking groups that own our major banks ASB, ANZ, BNZ, and Westpac have collectively loaned over AUD $35.5 billion to coal, oil and gas companies since 2016.
"Since 2013, 350 Aotearoa has been coordinating campaigns across Aotearoa, led by grassroots communities, and we have successfully pushed for major institutions including city councils, universities, faith organisations, and banks to divest from fossil fuels. This has been part of the global divestment movement which has shifted over $14 trillion assets under management away from oil, coal, and gas companies. It's time for the rest of the financial sector to follow suit," said Finnie.
350 is building a future that's just, prosperous, equitable and safe from the effects of the climate crisis. We're an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels and build a world of community-led renewable energy for all.
LATEST NEWS
GOP Hawks Alarmed as Trump Mulls Deal to End His Illegal Iran War
"Nothing was accomplished by Operation Epic Fury except putting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in charge of Iran and the Strait of Hormuz," said one critic of the war.
May 24, 2026
President Donald Trump revealed on Saturday that he is mulling a deal that would end his illegal war with Iran, and some hawks within the Republican Party are expressing alarm.
According to a Sunday report in The New York Times, many details of the agreement to end the war remain murky, with the fate of Iran's enriched uranium up in the air. US and Iranian officials have also given contradictory messages about the proposed deal's contents, suggesting there is much work still to be done before any agreement is finalized.
Regardless, three hawkish GOP senators on Saturday raised major concerns about the contents of the deal, warning against accepting any agreement that will leave Iran in a stronger position than before Trump illegally launched a war against it without any authorization from Congress in late February.
"If it is perceived in the region that a deal with Iran allows the regime to survive and become more powerful over time, we will have poured gasoline on the conflicts in Lebanon and Iraq," wrote Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who lobbied Trump to attack Iran repeatedly before the start of the war. "A deal that is perceived to allow Iran to survive and possess the ability to control the [Strait of Hormuz] in the future will put Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Shia militias in Iraq on steroids.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), another longtime Iran hawk, said he was "deeply concerned" about what he's been hearing about the deal and expressed particular worry about Iran getting relief from US sanctions while still maintaining the ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz.
"If the result of all that is to be an Iranian regime—still run by Islamists who chant 'death to America'—now receiving billions of dollars," Cruz wrote, "being able to enrich uranium and develop nuclear weapons, and having effective control over the Strait of Hormuz, then that outcome would be a disastrous mistake."
Sen. Roger Wicker (D-Miss.) was even blunter in his condemnation of the reported agreement.
"The rumored 60-day ceasefire—with the belief that Iran will ever engage in good faith—would be a disaster," Wicker wrote. "Everything accomplished by Operation Epic Fury would be for naught!"
Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser for President Barack Obama, challenged Wicker's claims that Trump's illegal war had achieved anything of value.
"Nothing was accomplished by Operation Epic Fury," Rhodes wrote, "except putting the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in charge of Iran and the Strait of Hormuz."
Rhodes' criticism was echoed by Stephen Wertheim, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who wrote that "everything accomplished by Operation Epic Fury is already for naught."
Ali Vaez, director of the Iran Project at the International Crisis Group, accused the Iran hawks of being delusional for thinking further bombing would force Iran to capitulate.
"DC's Iran hawks got two wars, nearly every conceivable sanction designation, a blockade, threw a wrench in global economy," Vaez wrote, "and will still claim that just a little more pressure and a touch more bombing will magically yield the concessions they still won't be satisfied with."
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The Kobeissi Letter, a financial newsletter, posted a graphic Saturday that matched consumer sentiment as measured by the University of Michigan's Surveys of Consumers with the performance of the S&P 500 stock index over a 30-year span.
The graphic shows that, up until around 2020, consumer sentiment matched stock market performance closely, although there was a large divergence between the two leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, where stocks briefly outperformed consumer sentiment before crashing downward as the housing bubble burst.
But throughout the last six years, the graphic shows, the S&P 500 has produced an almost continuous upward surge even as consumer sentiment spirals downward.
Absolutely incredible:
Over the last 6 years, the S&P 500 has risen +130% while US Consumer Sentiment has collapsed by -55%, to its lowest since data began in 1952.
We are witnessing the formation of the biggest wealth divide in modern history. https://t.co/XGMR6DfuNc pic.twitter.com/2w7cRvn7ok
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) May 23, 2026
"Absolutely incredible," commented Kobeissi Letter. "Over the last six years, the S&P 500 has risen +130% while US Consumer Sentiment has collapsed by -55%, to its lowest since data began in 1952. We are witnessing the formation of the biggest wealth divide in modern history."
Kobeissi Letter produced the graphic one day after the University of Michigan's latest survey found consumer sentiment hitting the lowest level on record.
Joanne Hsu, director of the survey, observed that "the cost of living continues to be a first-order concern, with 57% of consumers spontaneously mentioning that high prices were eroding their personal finances, up from 50% last month."
On the same day, Gallup published new data showing that Americans' economic confidence has fallen to its lowest level since October 2022, with just 16% of Americans rating the economy as excellent or good, and nearly half describing it as poor.
Axios reported on Saturday that even Republicans have been growing sour on the US economy, citing a recent poll from The Associated Press showing GOP approval of President Donald Trump on the economy to be at around 60%, down from 80% just three months ago.
"The growing GOP gloom could hardly come at a worse time for Trump and the party," Axios noted, "less than six months out from a midterm election that's likely to turn on the economy."
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A February report from TD Economics economist Ksenia Bushmeneva noted that “the economic divide between America’s households at the top of the income spectrum and everyone else continued to widen last year,” as “upper-income households benefited from the still-robust wage growth, strong gains in equity markets, and better access to consumer credit.”
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Maine Democratic US Senate candidate Graham Platner on Saturday said that a campaign ad that aired during a Boston Red Sox game was "taken down" after it took aim at the team's ownership.
The ad in question features Platner discussing the role that private equity firms play in the US economy, including sports teams.
"Private equity is destroying our favorite baseball team, stripping them for parts," Platner says at the start of the ad. "Private equity is buying up our homes, our sports, and our lives. I will reverse the private equity curse."
Private equity is taking our homes. It's taking our hospitals. It's taking beloved local businesses and stripping them for parts.
And now private equity is running the Red Sox into the ground.
Our new ad ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/w7LapElpdA
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) May 22, 2026
Platner concludes the ad by saying that he approves this message "because I miss Mookie Betts," the star player whom the Red Sox traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2020 in a deal that was widely decried by local fans as a salary dump.
According to Platner, his campaign began airing the ad Friday on the New England Sports Network (NESN), the cable TV station owned partially by Fenway Sports Group, the conglomerate that owns the Red Sox.
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