The United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative has published a 2024 progress report produced by the Net-Zero Banking Alliance. Launched in 2021, the NZBA is a bank-led alliance of 144 banks globally voluntarily committed to aligning their financing activities with routes to net zero emissions by 2050. The progress report summarizes information received from 122 member banks and offers insights into members' progress on target setting and transition planning. Overall, the report shows that most NZBA banks are taking significant steps towards meeting their climate goals. In the report, the NBZA identifies areas where more work is required, such as setting decarbonization targets for banks, which remains a challenging exercise due to the quality of client greenhouse gas emissions data, unclear decarbonization pathways, and a lack of a supportive policy environment. Insights gained from the progress will inform the steps NZBA will take to support emerging market banks that need more time to meet milestones. Following the vote earlier this year by member banks to reinforce and update the NZBA target setting guidelines, NZBA banks with significant capital markets activities are due to update their targets to include related emissions by November 2025.
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