Activists from Greenpeace climbed the entrance gate of KBC bank in Brussels during the early hours of Thursday and rolled out a banner to ask visitors to choose either a ‘coal’ or a ‘renewables’ entrance... The heating of 40 percent of the Czechs comes from coal-fired power plants. In order to supply them with coal, mining in the North of the Czech Republic already annihilated 82 villages, says Vladimir Burt, the mayor of Horni Jiretin. KBC finances this through its banking arm in the Czech Republic: CSOB. CSOB invested hundreds of millions to the open coal mines.

... KBC suddenly indicated that it had already decided not to allow new financing of coal-fired power plants and coal mines from June 2018, but was planning to announce that later. The bank still makes one exception for existing coal-fired plants for centrally controlled heating. According to KBC, that’s a question of not suddenly leaving 40 percent of Czech people out in the cold... KBC is by far the main player for financing the energy sector in the Czech Republic and today’s decision is likely to mark the beginning of the end of decades of struggle to stop the machines that ate a whole region.