Antinuclear

Big investment banks continue to walk away from the massive new coal field proposed for the Galilee Basin in Queensland, with three French Banks – Société Générale, Crédit Agricole and BNP Paribas – yesterday joining nine others in not banking on the project’s success.

It is “due to the number and magnitude of issues linked to the planned coal development projects in the Galilee Basin,” that Credit Agricole SA, one of the three French banks, advised company Market Forces it “does not intend to finance these projects or their associated facilities”.

No doubt Market Forces – a fossil fuel divestment group linked to Friends of the Earth – made those many issues very clear when it lobbied Credit Agricole. In total, 11 banks have now ruled out funding, including big international players like Barclays, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suiss, Deutsch Bank and HSBC.

Ten of these banks are in the top 20 lenders for Australian coal developments, Market Forces said.

There are now also two court challenges aimed at blocking the biggest project proposed for the Galilee, Adani’s Carmichael mine – one in the Queensland Land Court and one in the Federal Court.

The Wangan and Jagalingou people will also attempt to use native title rights to block Carmichael, which would cover 200 square kilometres.

At the same time, a growing divestment movement is increasing pressure, particularly on Australian banks, to not finance the devastating climate impacts the nine proposed mines would have. The Galilee projects, collectively, would produce more carbon emissions than whole nations like the UK, Italy and Australia.

New Matilda also understands there will soon be a civil disobedience campaign.

But the thing that is most crucial to the Galilee proponents’ struggle for finance is that the business model looks increasingly shaky. …….

It’s difficult to know what’s going on behind the scenes, and whether Australian banks will provide finance, but Adani will need something in the order of $10 billion to reach financial close.

Increasingly, the prospects of that happening look about as remote as the Galilee Basin itself.https://newmatilda.com/2015/04/10/big-banks-closing-vault-big-coal-adding-adanis-woes