{"id":199978,"date":"2021-11-22T12:00:26","date_gmt":"2021-11-22T12:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=199978"},"modified":"2025-01-10T15:08:23","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T15:08:23","slug":"un-backed-banker-alliance-announces-green-plan-to-transform-the-global-financial-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/11\/un-backed-banker-alliance-announces-green-plan-to-transform-the-global-financial-system\/","title":{"rendered":"UN-Backed Banker Alliance Announces \u201cGreen\u201d Plan to Transform the Global Financial System"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The most powerful private financial interests in the world, under the cover of COP26, have developed a plan to transform the global financial system by fusing with institutions like the World Bank and using them to further erode national sovereignty in the developing world.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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5 Nov 2021 – <\/em>On Wednesday [3 Nov], an \u201cindustry-led and UN-convened<\/a>\u201d alliance of private banking and financial institutions\u00a0announced plans<\/a> at the COP26 conference to overhaul the role of global and regional financial institutions, including the World Bank and IMF,\u00a0as part of a broader plan to \u201ctransform\u201d the global financial system. The officially stated purpose of this proposed overhaul, per alliance members, is to\u00a0promote the transition to a \u201cnet zero\u201d economy. However, the group\u2019s proposed\u00a0\u201creimagining\u201d of\u00a0international financial institutions, according to their recently published \u201cprogress report,\u201d would also move to\u00a0merge\u00a0these institutions with the private-banking interests that compose the alliance; create a new system of \u201cglobal financial governance\u201d; and erode national sovereignty among developing countries by forcing them to establish business environments deemed \u201cfriendly\u201d to the interests of alliance members. In other words, the powerful banking interests that compose this group are pushing to recreate the entire global financial system for their benefit under the guise of promoting sustainability.<\/p>\n

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This alliance, called the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), was launched in April by John Kerry, US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate Change; Janet Yellen, US Secretary of the Treasury and former chair of the Federal Reserve; and Mark Carney, UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance and former chair of the Bank of England and Bank of Canada. Carney, who is also the UK prime minister\u2019s Finance Advisor for the COP26 conference, currently cochairs the alliance with US billionaire and former mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg.<\/p>\n

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GFANZ Leadership – Source: GFANZ<\/p><\/div>\n

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On its creation, GFANZ stated that it would \u201cprovide a forum for strategic coordination among the leadership of finance institutions from across the finance sector to accelerate the transition to a net zero economy\u201d and \u201cmobilize the trillions of dollars necessary\u201d to accomplish the group\u2019s zero emissions goals. At the time of the alliance\u2019s launch, UK prime minister Boris Johnson described GFANZ as \u201cuniting the world\u2019s banks and financial institutions behind the global transition to net zero,\u201d while John Kerry noted that \u201cthe largest financial players in the world recognize energy transition represents a vast commercial opportunity.\u201d In analyzing those two statements together, it seems clear that GFANZ has united the world\u2019s most powerful private banks and financial institutions behind what it sees, first and foremost, as \u201ca vast commercial opportunity,\u201d the exploitation of which it is marketing as a \u201cplanetary imperative.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Kerry in conversation with CNN\u2019s Christine Amanpour at COP 26. Source: CNN<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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GFANZ is composed of several \u201csubsector alliances,\u201d including the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative (NZAM), the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance (NZAOA), and the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA). Together, they command a formidable part of global private banking and finance interests, with the NZBA alone currently representing 43 percent of all global banking assets. However, the \u201clargest financial players\u201d who dominate GFANZ include the CEOs of BlackRock, Citi, Bank of America, Banco Santander, and HSBC, as well as David Schwimmer, CEO of the London Stock Exchange Group and Nili Gilbert, chair of the Investment Committee of the David Rockefeller Fund.<\/p>\n

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Notably, another Rockefeller-connected entity, the Rockefeller Foundation, recently played a pivotal role<\/a> in the creation of Natural Asset Corporations (NACs) in September. These NACs seek to create a new asset class that would put the natural world, as well as the ecological processes that underpin all life, up for sale under the guise of \u201cprotecting\u201d them. Principals of GFANZ, including BlackRock\u2019s Larry Fink, have long been enthusiastic about the prospects of NACs and other related efforts to financialize the natural world and he has also played a key role in marketing such financialization as necessary to combat climate change.<\/p>\n

As part of COP26, GFANZ\u2014<\/em> a key group at that conference\u2014<\/em>is publishing a plan aimed at scaling \u201cprivate capital flows to emerging and developing economies.\u201d Per the alliance\u2019s\u00a0press release<\/a>, this plan focuses on \u201cthe development of country platforms to connect the now enormous private capital committed to net zero with country projects, scaling blended finance through MDBs [multilateral development banks] and developing high integrity, credible global carbon markets.\u201d The press release notes that this \u201cenormous private capital\u201d\u00a0is money that\u00a0alliance\u00a0members\u00a0seek to invest in emerging and developing countries, estimated at over $130 trillion,\u00a0and that\u2014<\/em>in order to deploy these trillions in investment\u2014<\/em>\u201cthe global financial system is being transformed\u201d by this very alliance in coordination with the group that convened them, the United Nations.<\/p>\n

Proposing a Takeover<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Details of GFANZ\u2019s plan to deploy trillions of member investments into emerging markets and developing countries was published in the alliance\u2019s inaugural \u201cProgress Report<\/a>,\u201d the release of which was timed to coincide with the COP26 conference. The report details the alliance\u2019s \u201cnear-term work plan and ambitions,\u201d which the alliance succinctly summarizes<\/a> as a \u201cprogram of work to transform the financial system.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report notes that the alliance has moved from the \u201ccommitment\u201d stage to the \u201cengagement\u201d stage, with the main focus of the engagement stage being the \u201cmobilization of private capital into emerging markets and developing countries through private-sector leadership and public-private collaboration.\u201d In doing so, per the report, GFANZ seeks to create \u201can international financial architecture\u201d that will increase levels of private investment from alliance members in those economies. Their main objectives in this regard revolve around the creation of \u201cambitious country platforms\u201d and increased collaboration between MDBs and the private financial sector.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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DOWNLOAD GFANZ Progress Report PDF<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Per GFANZ, a \u201ccountry platform\u201d is\u00a0defined as<\/a>\u00a0a mechanism that convenes and aligns \u201cstakeholders,\u201d that is, a mechanism for public-private partnership\/stakeholder capitalism, \u201caround a specific issue or geography.\u201d Examples offered include Mike Bloomberg\u2019s\u00a0Climate Finance Leadership Initiative<\/a> (CFLI), which is partnered with Goldman Sachs and HSBC among other private-sector institutions. While framed as being driven by \u201cstakeholders,\u201d\u00a0existing examples\u00a0of \u201ccountry platforms\u201d offered by the GFANZ are\u00a0either\u00a0private sector-led initiatives,\u00a0like the CFLI,\u00a0or public-private partnerships that are dominated by powerful multinational corporations and billionaires.\u00a0As\u00a0recently explained<\/a>\u00a0by\u00a0journalist and\u00a0researcher Iain Davis, these \u201cstakeholder capitalism\u201d mechanism models, despite being presented as offering a \u201cmore responsible\u201d form of capitalism, allow corporations and private entities to participate in forming the regulations that govern their own markets and giving them a greatly increased role in political decision making by placing them on an equal footing with national governments. It is essentially a creative way of marketing \u201ccorporatism,\u201d the definition of fascism infamously supplied by\u00a0Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.<\/p>\n

In addition to the creation of \u201ccorporatist\u201d \u201ccountry platforms\u201d that focus on specific areas and\/or issues in the developing world, GFANZ aims to also further \u201ccorporatize\u201d multilateral development banks (MDBs) and development finance institutions (DFIs) in order to better fulfill the investment goals of alliance members. Per the alliance, this is described as increasing \u201cMDB-private sector collaboration.\u201d\u00a0The GFANZ report<\/a>\u00a0notes that \u201cMDBs play a critical role in helping to grow investment flows\u201d in the developing world. MDBs, like the World Bank,\u00a0have long been criticized<\/a>\u00a0for accomplishing this task by trapping developing nations in debt and then using that debt to force those nations to deregulate markets (specifically financial markets), privatize state assets and implement unpopular austerity policies.\u00a0The GFANZ report<\/a>\u00a0makes it clear that the alliance now seeks to use these same, controversial tactics of MDBs by forcing even greater deregulation on developing countries to facilitate \u201cgreen\u201d investments from alliance members.<\/p>\n

The report\u00a0explicitly states<\/a>\u00a0that MDBs should be used to prompt developing nations \u201cto create the right high-level, cross-cutting enabling environments\u201d for alliance members\u2019 investments in those nations. The significantly greater levels of private-capital investment, which are needed to reach net zero per GFANZ, require that MDBs are used to prompt developing nations to \u201cestablish investment-friendly business environments; a replicable framework for deploying private capital investments; and pipelines of bankable investment opportunities.\u201d GFANZ then notes that \u201cprivate capital and investment will flow to these projects if governments and policymakers create the appropriate conditions,\u201d that is, enable environments for private-sector investments.<\/p>\n

In other words, through the proposed increase in private-sector involvement in MDBs, such as the World Bank and regional development banks, alliance members seek to use MDBs to globally impose massive and extensive deregulation on developing countries by using the decarbonization push as justification. No longer must MDBs entrap developing nations in debt to force policies that benefit foreign and multinational private-sector entities, as climate change-related justifications can now be used for the same ends.<\/p>\n

BlackRock CEO and GFANZ principal Larry Fink talks to CNBC during COP26. Source: CNBC<\/strong><\/p>\n

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This new modality for MDBs, along with their fusion with the private sector, is ultimately what GFANZ proposes in terms of \u201creimagining\u201d these institutions. GFANZ principal and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink,\u00a0during\u00a0a COP26 panel<\/a>\u00a0that took place on November 2, explicitly referred to the plan to overhaul these institutions when he said: \u201cIf we\u2019re going to be serious about climate change in the emerging world, we\u2019re going to have to really focus on the reimagination of the World Bank and the IMF.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fink\u00a0continued<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are the senior lender, and not enough private capital\u2019s coming into the emerging world today because of the risks associated with the political risk, investing in brownfield investments \u2014 if we are serious about elevating investment capital in the emerging world. . . . I\u2019m urging the owners of those institutions, the equity owners, to focus on how we reimagine these institutions and rethink their charter.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

GFANZ\u2019s proposed plans to reimagine MDBs are particularly alarming given how leaked US military documents show that such banks are considered to be essentially \u201cfinancial weapons<\/a>\u201d that have been used as \u201cfinancial instruments and diplomatic instruments of US national power\u201d as well as instruments of what those same documents refer to as the \u201ccurrent global governance system\u201d that are used to force developing countries to adopt policies they otherwise would not.<\/p>\n

In addition, given Fink\u2019s statements, it should not be surprising that\u00a0the GFANZ report notes that their\u00a0effort to establish \u201ccountry platforms\u201d and alter the functioning and charters of MDBs\u00a0is a key component of implementing preplanned recommendations aimed at \u201cseizing the New Bretton Woods moment\u201d and remaking the \u201cglobal financial governance\u201d system so that it \u201cpromote[s] economic stability and sustainable growth.\u201d<\/p>\n

As noted in other GFANZ documents and on their website, the goal of the alliance is the transformation of the global financial system, and it is obvious from member statements and alliance documents that the goal of that transformation is to facilitate the investment goals of alliance members beyond what is currently possible by using climate change-related dictates, rather than debt, as the means to that end.<\/p>\n

The UN and the \u201cQuiet Revolution\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In light of GFANZ\u2019s membership and members\u2019 ambitions, some may wonder why the United Nations would back such a predatory initiative. Doesn\u2019t the United Nations, after all, chiefly work with national governments as opposed to private-sector interests?<\/p>\n

Though that is certainly the prevailing public perception of the UN, the organization has for decades been following a \u201cstakeholder capitalist\u201d model that privileges the private sector and billionaire \u201cphilanthropists\u201d over national governments, with the latter merely being tasked with creating \u201cenabling environments\u201d for the policies created by and for the benefit of the former.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the World Economic Forum in 1998, Secretary General Kofi Annan\u00a0made this shift explicit<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United Nations has been transformed since we last met here in Davos. The Organization has undergone a complete overhaul that I have described as a \u2018quiet revolution.\u201d . . . A fundamental shift has occurred. The United Nations once dealt only with governments. By now we know that peace and prosperity cannot be achieved without partnerships involving governments, international organizations, the business community and civil society. . . . The business of the United Nations involves the businesses of the world.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

With the UN now essentially a vehicle for the promotion of stakeholder capitalism, it is only fitting that it would \u201cconvene\u201d and support the efforts of a group like GFANZ to extend that stakeholder capitalist model to other institutions involved in global governance, specifically global financial governance. Allowing GFANZ members, that is, many of the largest private banks and financial institutions in the world, to fuse with MDBs, remake the \u201cglobal financial governance system,\u201d and gain increased control over political decisions in the emerging world is a banker\u2019s dream come true. To get this far, all they have needed to do was to convince enough of the world\u2019s population that such shifts are necessary due to the perceived urgency of climate change and the need to rapidly decarbonize the economy. Yet, if put into practice, what will result is hardly a \u201cgreener\u201d world but a world dominated by a small financial and technocratic elite who are free to profit and pillage from both \u201cnatural capital\u201d and \u201chuman capital.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, MDBs are used as \u201cinstruments of power\u201d that utilize debt to force developing nations to implement policies that benefit foreign interests rather than their own national interests. If GFANZ gets its way, the MDBs of tomorrow will be used to essentially eliminate national sovereignty,\u00a0privatize the \u201cnatural assets\u201d<\/a>\u00a0(e.g., ecosystems, ecological processes) of the developing world, and force increasingly technocratic policies designed by global governance institutions and think tanks on ever more disenfranchised populations.<\/p>\n

Though GFANZ has cloaked itself in lofty rhetoric of \u201csaving the planet,\u201d its plans ultimately amount to a corporate-led coup that will make the global financial system even more corrupt and predatory and further reduce the sovereignty of national governments in the developing world.<\/p>\n

____________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Whitney Webb has been a professional writer, researcher and journalist since 2016. She has written for several websites and, from 2017 to 2020, was a staff writer and senior investigative reporter for <\/em>Mint Press News. She currently writes for <\/em>The Last American Vagabond.<\/p>\n

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Go to Original –<\/a> unlimitedhangout.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

5 Nov 2021 – The most powerful private financial interests in the world, under the cover of COP26, have developed a plan to transform the global financial system by fusing with institutions like the World Bank and using them to further erode national sovereignty in the developing world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":199979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2234],"tags":[1023,2101,232,2716,550,555,562,2231,2229,626,1289,610,1624,2059,2198,2060,2718,70,1557,1700],"class_list":["post-199978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-great-reset","tag-banksters","tag-blackrock","tag-capitalism","tag-cop26","tag-corruption","tag-elites","tag-finance","tag-fiscal-paradises","tag-great-reset","tag-greed","tag-imf","tag-inequality","tag-mafia","tag-organized-crime","tag-post-capitalism","tag-profits","tag-pyramid-schemes","tag-usa","tag-wall-street","tag-world-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":284673,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199978\/revisions\/284673"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}