Noel Quinn’s Post

I live in a corner of the planet where, in the span of fewer than 6 months in 2021, we experienced a heatdome so severe it proved the deadliest weather event in Canadian history; catastrophic wildfires that, for yet another summer, darkened our skies; and later record-setting floods that shut down our transportation infrastructure for weeks. A small Canadian town was levelled by fire on a day in early summer when temperatures rose higher than what would be experienced in North Africa. A scant 5 months later, our province’s most prominent agricultural region, responsible for producing nearly all of our dairy, eggs and produce, was underwater. The damage there is expected to take decades to repair. I’m much less preoccupied with the misalignment between the Moral Summit comments and HSBC’s official position than I am with the notion that the markets are always the best at predicting and pricing risk (anyone else remember the 2008 financial crisis?). Or, for that matter, that they are the most effective mechanism by which to ensure that those most likely to be subject to shock are adequately protected. Action on climate change and adaptation to the latter is not a choice we can forego. It is a matter of urgent necessity.

An obligation to lead indeed. Why then when most U.K. companies including banks have already removed their pension clawbacks (erroneously described as a state pension reduction), does HSBC refuse to address this inequity? The cost would be small for such a profitable bank and it would make a huge difference to thousands of HSBC pensioners who have very modest provisions, particularly women who had broken service histories. At a time when we have a cost of living crisis on a scale that has not been experienced for 40 years, it is time to finally do the right thing by your former staff. Maybe your other commitments and words would then be taken more seriously.

Why would you put a climate change denier in charge of ESG? Either he has to go or the CEO who appointed this man. No other option is acceptable. Where’s he been for the last five years? How can someone so utterly stupid have any level of seniority with your bank? After his remarks all your company is doing is green washing. Your credibility is gone.

Really nothing more than a bunch of corporate virtue signaling on your part, caving to the pressure of the left. Yes, climate change is real and we need to transition… smartly. But we also need to live rationally through the transition. Efforts to withhold financing to traditional energy companies in the name of the political dogma are not helpful and hurting regular people. Is that your goal? Hurting average people, punishing them with higher oil and gas prices and the resulting contribution to inflation throughout the global economy? Well done, you’re succeeding, like so many other institutions. Apparently you’re not able to walk and chew gum at the same time. Finance clean energy and traditional energy at the same time. Let the market figure out the timeframe and don’t make it your business to punish consumers in the meantime. New definition of ESG should be Extremely Severe Government risk. That’s really what we’re talking about, isn’t it. The risk that companies face from government intervention and regulation.

It is wonderful to see Stuart Kirk having the integrity to stand up and expose the global warming scam. Perhaps Noel Quinn can share IN HIS OWN WORDS, what is the EVIDENCE that man's CO2 has caused ANY of the warming since the Little Ice Age, 300 years ago?

The fact is that HSBC (or any other bank pushing ESG funds) has no impact on the climate. Banks are exploiting naïve investors who wrongly believe that when they invest in ESG funds they are giving money to the companies in the fund. This is obviously not true : if you invest in say the Wind Energy fund you don't give money to the wind energy companies. You give money to the guy that sells the wind energy stock. Nothing happens to the wind energy company. In the same way excluding oil and gas stocks has no effect on the climate as the stock will be held by someone who could care less about ESG. The negative consequence for your investors is that you give up diversification which will hurt your performance when the politically incorrect stocks do well and the others do poorly as we see this year : ESG funds are in the toilet because the big tech high ESG stocks are suffering and oil and gas stocks and coal stocks are going through the roof. I hope that investors will learn a lesson and that this is the beginning of the end of the ESG fund scam. Stuart Kirk has done everyone a favour by making it clear that pretending that the financial sector can control the climate or climate change risk is a huge lie.

Thanks for responding Noel but I really don't find this very convincing. First, it is reported that "the theme and content had been agreed internally before Kirk spoke on Thursday". Having seen how compliance works from the inside, that this would happen is without doubt, So what is it about the organisational culture that allowed this gross error of judgement to happen at two places in the organisation? Second, and most important, what is it about the tone from the top that allowed someone like this to be appointed and corrective action not to be taken previously? Or are you asking us to believe this opinion was really "a bolt from the blue" which execs had no idea about? Even that would be very worrying. After all this was not the head of IRresponsible investment! Your line - that he is "exceptional" and HSBC is actually very different - just doesn't ring true to me. I and others will be looking at what you DO - ie whether you and your exec team make corrective actions that show you mean to do things differently. Until then, clients and stakeholders would be wise to assume that he is more aligned with HSBC's real culture than you would like to acknowledge. I hope you will prove me wrong.

Noel Quinn - I don't think Kirk was saying that climate change is not real, or that it does not have long-term negative economic impacts. He was saying that it's not very relevant to most portfolio strategies because, among other things, they're oriented toward the short-term. Given the poor performance of the financial services industry in recent years to do anything useful to curb emissions despite years of talking about it (witness the latest IPCC report...) we need a fresh debate on the consensus of failed ideas coming from global banks today. If Kirk's frankness helps sparks that debate, all the better: we're running out of time. (Also, important that we always remember: dealing with climate financial risks - i e. a portfolio adaptation strategy - is NOT the same thing as fighting climate change itself.)

HSBC financed $130bn of fossil fuels in the last 5 years, after Paris Agreement. Stop taking people for fools and start putting words into actions.