MPs HAVE been urged to press the Bank of England to strengthen its climate and nature work, with campaigners warning that it is currently undermining the government’s clean energy and green growth missions.

In a joint briefing today, 11 groups — including WWF, Greenpeace, Green Alliance, the New Economics Foundation and Positive Money — called on MPs to ensure the bank co-ordinates with the government to support the clean energy transition.

The intervention comes days before the 10th anniversary of a landmark speech by former bank governor Mark Carney, now Canada’s prime minister, in which he warned of the financial risks posed by climate change.

A decade later, the organisations argue that the bank is instead fuelling the problem by accepting fossil fuel holdings as collateral for loans to financial firms.

They said this amounts to an implicit subsidy to high-emitting companies and urged the bank to follow the European Central Bank in factoring climate considerations into its collateral rules.

The groups also criticised the bank’s response to inflation, saying it had “misguidedly” raised interest rates in response to energy price spikes and supply chain bottlenecks.