Green group to target banks financing coal projects

By Steve James

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Environmentalists are stepping up their assault on the coal industry by targeting two major banks that finance the mine companies blamed for greenhouse gas emissions.

The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) declined to say on Friday which banks it has in its sights, but earlier this week it identified Bank of America Corp and Citigroup Inc as companies that report low levels of emissions while continuing to invest in coal projects.

RAN pointed a finger at the institutions last Monday outside a meeting of the Carbon Disclosure Project, which monitors corporate disclosure related to climate change.

Brianna Cayo Cotter, a spokeswoman for RAN, said the group had been talking about the issue with big U.S. financial institutions for several months.

She said the San Francisco-based environmental group will name the targeted banks when it launches its campaign against coal financing next Tuesday.

Financial giants are coming under increasing fire from environmental groups and investors who complain they still fund power plants and other polluting projects, despite adopting the Earth-friendly Equator Principles with much fanfare in 2003.

"People across the country are waking up to the threats posed by coal -- the world's dirtiest, most carbon-intensive and most heavily used energy source -- and demanding that it be replaced by energy efficiency and clean, renewable energy sources like solar and wind," RAN said in a statement.

It said it was fighting to stop an estimated 150 proposed coal-fired power plants currently in development across the United States.