Essay by Eric Worrall
Bye bye, good riddance.
Global banking climate group to stop operations after member exodus
Rebecca Speare-Cole
Fri, 3 October 2025 at 9:15 pm GMT+10The banking sector’s global alliance for setting climate targets has ceased operations after an exodus of its members over the last year.
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… several major banks, including British lenders HSBC and Barclays, left the group within the last year.
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“As a result of this decision, NZBA will cease operations immediately.”
…Campaigners have condemned the exodus of major banks from the group, saying it undermines international efforts to co-ordinate climate action.
Read more: https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/global-banking-climate-group-stop-111518258.html
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Apparently the climate “resources” created during the organisation’s short life will still be available for banks which want to use them. I’m sure former member banks will find some use for the resources.
It’s good to see that those initially supporting the Net Zero concept have come to their senses and recognized their efforts as the equivalent of whipping a lame horse when their investors saw their money was going nowhere fast. Now that they’ve been convinced by further developments that the only Net Zeroes they were facing were their bottom lines, the lame horse has become a dead one, and the NZBA’s abandonment of the whole concept is further proof that Net Zero is unattainable with the current existing technologies.
The funny part is there is a technology which might have made solar power economically viable, space based solar. They would have needed Project Orion launchers powered by nuclear bombs to affordably put the solar plants into orbit, but in theory the numbers line up. In practice never going to happen, at least not in my lifetime.
Unlikely.If the power can’t be transmitted from generator to demand, it’s worthless. The cost to put mass in geosynchronous orbit is always going to be prohibitively high per unit of mass.
That is what the nuclear explosive option apparently solves, even more so than nuclear thermal. The most powerful designs in theory could deliver a specific impulse of 75000 seconds, compared to 500 seconds for chemical rockets. Even though individual nuclear bombs are expensive, the ability of a handful of bombs to launch 10s of thousands or even millions of tons into orbit in a single launch compensates for the cost.
This completely ignores the political dimension of course.
AFAIK, Project Orion never seriously contemplated use of nuclear fission bombs to provide liftoff thrust or thru-atmosphere thrusting for any mega launcher, primarily due to the intense amount of radioactivity and radionuclides such would release into Earth’s atmosphere.
Instead the Project Orion rocket concept was developed for deep interplanetary and/or interstellar use, where nobody would be particular concerned about such radioactivity and fission debris contaminating the “local environment”.
Of course, one of the major failings of the Orion rocket concept soon came to light with the realization that setting off a nuclear fission explosion in space vacuum results in very little “blast impact” on the spacecraft’s pusher plate since there is no gas to be superheated and pushed away from the nuclear bomb detonation point . . . yes, lots of radiation and heat generated in space, but only a very tiny amount of momentum exchange (only from the vaporized metal of the fission material and the bomb casing).
In turn, that caused the concept to evolve to an ablative pusher plate, but I’ve never seen that evolved design was calculated to have Isp’s as high as 75,000 seconds due to the combination of (a) high MW of a practical pusher plate ablative-originated gas/plasma . . . much higher than that of air, and (b) the lower evolved gas/plasma temperatures as time-averaged over the bomb’s reaction time, roughly on the order of one microsecond.
The 75000s was the H-bomb version, the starship version. 4-6000 seconds is much easier to achieve.
Freeman Dyson claimed he mostly solved the fallout problem, give the initial boost with a large conventional bomb, subsequent nuclear airbursts would release a lot less fallout. But the lowest fallout they could model still led to at least one premature death from cancer per launch, or so Dyson’s son claimed in his book.
“. . . give(n) the initial boost with a large conventional bomb . . .”
That’s nice, given that there is no such thing (and never was) as a conventional bomb* with kiloton—to say nothing of megaton—TNT explosive rating.
Freeman Dyson, great scientist and futuristic thinker . . . great engineer?, not so much.
*For reference, the largest conventional bomb in terms of explosive power is the Russian Father of All Bombs (FOAB), with a yield of about 44 tons of TNT, followed by the American Massive Ordnance Air Blast bomb (MOAB), which yields about 11 tons of TNT.
You’d actually need to start the pulse nuclear propulsion system well away from the Earth’s magnetosphere. Operation Fishbowl, and in particular the Starfish Prime test, resulted in huge increases in Van Allen belt electron content and energy (not to mention electromagnetic pulse effects on the ground), which persisted for years and which took out a number of satellites. Starfish Prime was a 1.4 megaton bomb, admittedly, but given the large number of “small” nukes an Orion would shoot to get into orbit, a lot of damage would occur.
Oh, and the radiation? Note that this idea is probably TRL 2.
TRL 2 still lacks experimental proof of concept. It is an untested idea.
“They would have needed Project Orion launchers powered by nuclear bombs”
I assume this is satire.
So are renewables.!I find it entertaining there is at least one theoretical path to economically viable renewables.
“The funny part is there is a technology which might have made solar power economically viable, space based solar. They would have needed Project Orion launchers powered by nuclear bombs to affordably put the solar plants into orbit, but in theory the numbers line up. In practice never going to happen, at least not in my lifetime.”
Obviously some strange usage of the word “viable” that I hadn’t previously been aware of.
IIRC there was a fun SciFi novel “Footfall” where the Orion project plays a major role.
But not to produce electricity! Lol
[Spoiler alert; Aliens land on Earth…]
Ha yes – a bit dated nowadays but one of the good ones. I loved the explanation for why aliens who could build starships were not overwhelmingly superior in military capabilities.
A Fun book. OS Card is so close to hard science fiction.
Just build a lift (US – “Elevator”).
It’s a materials problem. One that is very close to being solved.
And it makes SpaceX obsolete.
Don’t get caught uo in Canal-Mania while the railways are being designed.
This was seriously studied in the 702 and 80s.
Energy transfer by high intensity microwaves.
Can you guess the first risk identifies (hit, it was not raptors, those were #2).
It is interesting to note that Marc Carney, who was instrumental in putting together NZBA was also the Chairman of Brookfield Asset Managers who increased their portfolio to over 50% fossil fuels during the same time period. Do you suppose that companies BAM invested in had any trouble at all gaining access to bank financing while Carney was running both?
Now he’s the PM of Canada where after years of campaigning to destroy Canada’s energy economy, he’s now vowing to save it. Save it with what we’re not sure but that it will put money in the same pockets that NZBA/BAM did would not surprise me.
Carney is a classic Machiavellian…it’s not clear if he is a CC doom believer or just believes that carbon-whatever is a good way to control the economy of whatever country has put him in charge of their banking system. Seems to be a nice guy running on max delusion level…
The banks were promised easy money from government backing of NZ but they realized instead they were being duped just like the citizens.
Relatedly from Australia:
On 24th September 2021, in the midst of Covid-19 restrictions, then Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg addressed an industry group saying that –
“(I) will back the goal of net zero emissions by 2050 on the grounds it is already factored into financial markets as well as being endorsed by most major economies as part of the Paris agreement by United Nations members on climate change.”
Climate change: Australia can’t be left behind on net-zero emissions, says Josh Frydenberg
Soon after, in a TV chat, the Treasurer added informally that he was under pressure from international bankers to adopt net zero for Australia. His exact words were not found by a long Internet search at time of writing. However, it does not seem to be in dispute.
What shameful people these bankers were.
Geoff S
Frydenberg pushed a $20 billion green hydrogen scheme, so I don’t take anything he says about being a reluctant Net Zero advocate seriously. He didn’t have to do that.
Mark Carney saw this pet project of his unfolding rapidly and jumped off the sinking ship to head back to Canada to be a retail politician instead.
But still poised to tap into a country’s taxation cash flows with any “cunning plan” that can be melded into the system.
RE: …retail politician…
Can we buy them at Walmart when they are on sale?
BOGOF (:-))
[Buy one, get one free ]
LOL!
Carney is an economist…he believes in governments ability to issue as much money into the economy as possible to keep society happy….printing, borrowing, guaranteeing loans for houses, roads, sports facilities, whatever….to spin around in the economy providing everyone with jobs, services, entertainment, parks, edifice buildings, whatever…..up to point where investors get concerned that they might not get paid back, or realize that their final $1000 payment will only buy a cup of coffee.
To him, the green agenda is probably just a policy that allows lending, taxing and spending with much reduced oversight. As reported by the CBC
“In his time at Brookfield Asset Management, Liberal Leader Mark Carney personally co-chaired two investment funds dedicated to the transition to a net-zero carbon economy, worth a total of $25 billion.
Those funds were registered in Bermuda, among other locations, allowing investors to benefit from significant tax advantages, according to information obtained by Radio-Canada.”
Space-based solar power works fine – for the space station and other space-based projects.
In theory, it would work to provide power to the ground, but in practice, it does not.
The list of issues is quite long.
While I am pleased to hear of the demise of NZBA, we in New Zealand have something called the “Centre for Sustainable Finance.” All the New Zealand financial institutions are involved.
https://sustainablefinance.nz/
To get finance, companies will need to show they are “sustainable” by reporting, with documentation, their ESG and DEI status.
They are currently calling for submissions on something called the New Zealand Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance. Submissions close 17 October 2025.
It’s like the Council of Foxes is asking for submissions from the chickens on how the foxes should manage the hen-house.
The Centre for Foxes is wanting the chickens to comment on which fox should eat them.
WE are not allowed to comment on whether foxes should be eating chickens.
This Taxonomy will be the targets needed to be achieved to be considered Green. I assume Companies that choose not provide evidence of greenness need not apply for finance.
I don’t personally recall when we asked for the banks to decide how we should run our businesses.
Rebecca Speare-Cole: please define what you mean by the term “climate action”, which you assert the NZBA group was to coordinate.
“If you can’t define something you have no formal rational way of knowing that it exists. Neither can you really tell anyone else what it is. There is, in fact, no formal difference between inability to define and stupidity.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
More good news.
Net zero emission of CO2 is not possible because humans exhale ca.
8 billion kilograms of CO2 everyday. To this is added all the CO2 from all the domesticated animals.
Despite the emission of CO2 from all sources, the amount of CO2 that remains in the air is quite small. At the MLO in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 in dry air is 425 ppmv. One cubic meter of this air has mass of 1.29 kg and contains a mere 0.83 g CO2 at CO2 at STP. Most of the CO2 is absorbed by the oceans and surface fresh water, where it is fixed by phytoplankton.
We really do not have to worry about the trace greenhouse gas CO2. Please keep in mind 71% of the earth’s surface is covered with H2O, the one and only one greenhouse gas of importance.
“Campaigners have condemned the exodus of major banks from the group, saying it undermines international efforts to co-ordinate climate action.”
It sure looks like a coordinated climate action — all the major banks are leaving at the same time.
Another bit of good news, but I just saw something about the WEF still using climate for their 2030 control push. If all the institutions back out how will their push succeed?
Campaigners have condemned the exodus of major banks from the group, saying it undermines international efforts to co-ordinate climate action.
Absolutely correct. Which is why it is such a good thing.
My take inspired by this article:
http://www.masterresource.org/environment-social-government-esg/net-zero-banking-alliance-terminated/