Climate capital in the balance as EBA rejects green risk weights

European regulator suggests climate change must be factored into existing risk categories

You might say bankers’ concerns about climate risk-weighting are evergreen. Banks have long been sceptical about bespoke risk weights that benefit green-friendly deals and penalise those that aren’t. And now, the European Banking Authority has arrived at the same conclusion.

But that doesn’t mean banks are happy with the regulator’s proposed alternatives. Far from it.

“It’s all pushed back to the banks,” says Michel van den Berg, a sustainability adviser who has worked with the major Dutch banks.