... [I]nvestment bank Goldman Sachs updated its rules about when and how it would underwrite fossil-fuel projects. Goldman will now refuse to finance oil exploration or drilling in the Arctic, including in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. It will also decline to finance new thermal coal mines, mountaintop-removal mines, or coal-fired power plants... Generally, banks both lend capital directly to fossil-fuel companies and connect those companies with third-party investors. Goldman says its ban applies to both kinds of activity. While other banks around the world—including Barclays and Société Générale—have adopted similar policies, Goldman Sachs is both the first American bank and the largest bank by market value to do so. Goldman also committed to spend $750 billion on a number of clean-energy and climate-adjacent areas over the next 10 years.

... There’s an understandable tendency to minimize these corporate calls for climate action: Many oil-company CEOs also officially endorse a carbon tax, for instance, even though the oil industry’s trade group fights against it at every opportunity. But Goldman’s actions seem like a much bigger deal... [Goldman's] $750 billion figure will still single-handedly double that level of private funding for climate-mitigation and adaptation over the next decade.