The Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), an ambitious UN-convened project to get the world’s banks to decarbonize, is no more. The organization has been shut down with immediate effect, following a cascade of member withdrawals that left the group hollowed out and ineffective. Its guidance will remain online, but the alliance itself is a thing of the past.
For sharp critics of the initiative, this outcome was inevitable. Lucie Pinson, director of Reclaim Finance, said she “won’t mourn” its demise, describing the NZBA as an “illusion of measures” that was never designed to deliver real climate action. She argued its purpose was to deflect regulatory pressure, and its failure only clarifies the need for such pressure.
The alliance’s unraveling accelerated dramatically after Donald Trump’s re-election. His administration’s open hostility to climate policy and the rise of an “anti-ESG” movement in the US made it politically risky for American banks to remain members. They faced being branded as “woke” and targeted by conservative lawmakers.
In response, the six largest US banks executed a swift and coordinated exit from the NZBA. This strategic retreat by institutions like Citigroup and Morgan Stanley was a body blow to the alliance, removing its most powerful contingent and fatally undermining its global standing.
The departure of the American banks triggered a slow-motion collapse. Lenders in Europe and Japan followed, and the final chapter saw UK giants HSBC and Barclays also quit this summer. The pattern was clear: without universal buy-in from the world’s major financial centers, the voluntary alliance could not function. The focus now turns to what comes next, with many activists insisting that only binding legislation can achieve what the NZBA could not.