NAB chairman Phil Chronican points to risks of financing new gas projects

“And the question you have to ask is: how much new gas development can we really afford to be doing in the next five to 10 years, if we’re going to be at minimal levels of gas extraction by 2050? Because many of these projects… that will be a real economic problem.”

Chronican said that while NAB’s board had been able to support moves to ultimately stop funding new coal and oil developments, gas was more complicated because of its role as a transition fuel.

“Gas is a really gnarly issue and I’m not going to walk away from that,” he said. “But we need to be focused on getting renewables and building an electricity, energy market and a grid that can support a renewable framework. That has to be our highest priority, because we can’t just keep building out more gas and extracting new gas and expecting to have a miracle that gets us to net zero.”

NAB’s rivals are also wary about funding new gas projects, but have not ruled it out. Westpac last week said it wanted to cut “financed emissions” in gas, while Commonwealth Bank and ANZ Bank have said they would finance only “Paris-aligned” projects.

Addressing the same event, former Reserve Bank of Australia deputy governor Dr Guy Debelle said Australia needed more consistency when it came to reporting and assessing climate action across the corporate landscape.

“I think one of the challenges is to come up with a consistent way of looking at this rather than having everyone pick and choose,” Debelle said.

“I think that’s been a bit lacking … There is still a ways to go, and hopefully we will be there in the next year or so, in terms of greater consistency in the financial reporting and assessment.”

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