Climate leadership at big banks will be tested with earnings this week

By Trey Thoelcke Published Apr 12, 12:43PM EDT

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Climate leadership at big banks will be tested with earnings this week — © Stephen Chernin / Getty Images

By David Callaway, Callaway Climate Insights

(David Callaway is founder and Editor-in-Chief of Callaway Climate Insights. He is the former president of the World Editors Forum, Editor-in-Chief of USA Today and MarketWatch, and CEO of TheStreet Inc.)

SAN FRANCISCO (Callaway Climate Insights) — A handful of the world’s biggest banks will report earnings this week, following a tumultuous quarter of war, surging interest rates, swinging financial markets and a complete flip of the energy transition story toward more oil, gas and coal use than ever before.

Among the banks reporting are JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), BlackRock (BLK), Citigroup (C), Morgan Stanley (MS), Goldman Sachs (GS) and Wells Fargo (WFC) — most of them signatories on various international climate commitment agreements.

Given the interest investors will have in what the leaders of these banks will say about the quarter, particularly about interest rates, we might expect to hear little if anything about the status of their fossil fuel lending operations. However, because this might be the last quarterly earnings reports before the Securities and Exchange Commission’s new climate disclosure rule is finalized, it’s possible a few of the banks might soft launch an attempt to show the Feds they are serious. . . .

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About the Author Trey Thoelcke →

Trey has been an editor and author at 24/7 Wall St. for more than a decade, where he has published thousands of articles analyzing corporate earnings, dividend stocks, short interest, insider buying, private equity, and market trends. His comprehensive coverage spans the full spectrum of financial markets, from blue-chip stalwarts to emerging growth companies.

Beyond 24/7 Wall St., Trey has created and edited financial content for Benzinga and AOL's BloggingStocks, contributing additional hundreds of articles to the investment community. He previously oversaw the 24/7 Climate Insights site, managing editorial operations and content strategy, and currently oversees and creates content for My Investing News.

Trey's editorial expertise extends across multiple publishing environments. He served as production editor at Dearborn Financial Publishing and development editor at Kaplan, where he helped shape financial education materials. Earlier in his career, he worked as a writer-producer at SVE. His freelance editing portfolio includes work for prestigious clients such as Sage Publications, Rand McNally, the Institute for Supply Management, the American Library Association, Eggplant Literary Productions, and Spiegel.

Outside of financial journalism, Trey writes fiction and has been an active member of the writing community for years, overseeing a long-running critique group and moderating workshop sessions at regional conventions. He lives with his family in an old house in the Midwest.