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The Swiss National Bank has come into the spotlight following its assistance in UBS’ takeover of Credit Suisse.

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The Swiss National Bank will hold its annual general meeting in Bern on Friday against a backdrop of protest over its action on climate change and its role in the emergency sale of Credit Suisse to Swiss rival UBS.

The central bank played a key role in brokering the rescue of Credit Suisse over the course of a chaotic weekend in March, as a flight of deposits and plummeting share price took the 167-year-old institution to the brink of collapse.

The deal remains mired in controversy and legal challenges, particularly over the lack of investor input and the unconventional decision to wipe out 15 billion Swiss francs ($16.8 billion) of Credit Suisse AT1 bonds.

The demise of the country’s second-largest bank fomented widespread discontent and severely damaged Switzerland’s long-held reputation for financial stability. It also came against a febrile political backdrop, with federal elections coming up in October.

While the SNB will no doubt face questions and grievances from shareholders about the Credit Suisse situation on Friday, the country’s network of climate activists will also be seeking to use the central bank’s unwanted spotlight to challenge its investment policies.

Unlike many major central banks, the SNB operates publicly-traded company, with just over half of its roughly 25 million Swiss franc ($28.1 million) share capital held by public shareholders — including various Swiss cantons (states) and cantonal banks — while the remaining shares are held by private investors.

A shareholder walks past a giant inflate balloom during a protest by climate activists ahead of the general meeting of shareholders of UBS bank in Basel, on April 5, 2023, following the takeover by UBS of Credit Suisse hastily arranged by the Swiss government on March 19 to prevent a financial meltdown. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP) (Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)

Fabrice Coffrini | Afp | Getty Images

More than 170 climate activists have now purchased a SNB share, according to the SNB Coalition, a dedicated pressure group spun out of Alliance Climatique Suisse — an umbrella organization representing around 140 Swiss environmental campaign groups.

Around 50 of the activist shareholders will be in attendance on Friday, and activists plan to make around a dozen speeches on stage at the AGM, climate campaigner Jonas Kampus told CNBC on Wednesday. Protests will also be held outside the event.

The group is calling for the SNB to dispose of its stock holdings of “companies that cause serious environmental damage and/or violate fundamental human rights,” pointing to the central bank’s own investment guidelines.

In particular, campaigners have highlighted SNB holdings in Chevron, Shell, TotalEnergies, ExxonMobil, Repsol, Enbridge and Duke Energy.

Members of a Ugandan community objecting to TotalEnergies’ East African Crude Oil Pipeline, will also attend on Friday, with one planning to speak on stage directly to the SNB directorate.

As well as a full exit from fossil fuel investments, activists are demanding that the SNB implement the “one for one rule,” — a capital requirement designed to prevent banks and insurers benefiting from activities that are detrimental for the transition to net zero.

In this context, the SNB would be required to set aside one Swiss franc of its own funds to cover potential losses for each franc allocated to financing new fossil fuel exploration or extraction.

Swiss Social Democrats VP: UBS-Credit Suisse takeover significant risk for Swiss people

Ahead of the AGM, the central bank declined on legal grounds to schedule three motions tabled by the activists, and said on Wednesday that it would not comment on protest plans, instead directing CNBC to its formal agenda. Yet Kampus suggested that just the process of submitting the motions itself had helped expand public and political awareness of the issues.

“From all sides, there is public pressure and also political pressure that the SNB needs to change things. At this moment, the SNB is really far behind in terms of their actions taken compared to other central banks,” Kampus told CNBC via telephone, adding that the SNB takes a “very conservative view” of its mandate regarding price stability and financial stability, which is “very narrow.”

The shareholders’ cause is also backed by a motion in parliament, with support from lawmakers ranging from the Green Party to the Centre [center-right party], which demands an extension of the SNB’s mandate to cover climate and environmental risks.

“While other central banks around the world are going well beyond the steps taken by the SNB in ​​this respect — the SNB has repeatedly taken the position that its mandate does not give it sufficient leeway to take climate risks fully into account in its decisions and monetary policy instruments,” reads the motion, filed on March 16 by Green Party lawmaker Delphine Klopfenstein Broggini.

Swiss National Bank chair: Maintaining stability is our main goal

“The present parliamentary initiative is intended to ensure this leeway and to make it clear that the SNB must take climate risks into account when conducting monetary policy.”

The motion argues that climate risks are “classified worldwide as significant financial risks that can endanger financial and price stability,” concluding that it is in “Switzerland’s overall interest that the SNB proactively address these issues” as other central banks are seeking to do.

Kampus and his fellow activists hope the national focus on the SNB after the Credit Suisse crisis provides fertile ground to advance concerns about climate risk, which he said poses a risk to the financial system that is “several times larger” than the potential fallout from Credit Suisse’s collapse.

“We feel that there is also a window of opportunity on the SNB side in that they maybe this time are a bit more humble, because they obviously also have done some things wrong in terms of the Credit Suisse crash,” Kampus said.

He noted that the central bank has always asserted that climate risk was incorporated into its models and that there was “no need for further exchange with the public of further transparency.”

Investor who predicted Credit Suisse decline says Swiss banking model is 'damaged'

“Very central to the SNB’s work is that the public just needs to trust them. Trust is something that is very important to the central bank, and to demand trust from the public without leading up to it or supporting it with further evidence that we can trust them in the long run is quite scary, especially when we don’t know what their climate model is,” he said.

The SNB has long argued that its passive investment strategy, which invests in global indexes, is part of its mandate to remain market neutral, and that it is not for the central bank to engage in climate policy. Activists hope mounting political pressure will eventually force a change in legislation to broaden the SNB’s mandate to accommodate climate and human rights as risks to financial and price stability.

UBS and Credit Suisse also faced protests from climate activists at their respective AGMs earlier this month over investment in fossil fuel companies.

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Economists, experts call for governments to ditch hydrogen, go fully electric

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Economists, experts call for governments to ditch hydrogen, go fully electric

In a joint statement, French and German economists have called on governments to adopt “a common approach” to decarbonize European trucking fleets – and they’re calling for a focus on fully electric trucks, not hydrogen.

France and Germany are the two largest economies in the EU, and they share similar challenges when it comes to freight decarbonization. The two countries also share a border, and the traffic between the two nations generates major cross-border flows that create common externalities between the two countries.

At the same time, the EU’s transport sector has struggled to reduce emissions at the same rate as other industries – and road freight in particular is a major contributor to harmful carbon emissions issue due to that industry’s heavy reliance on diesel-powered trucks.

And for once, it seems like rail isn’t a viable option:

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While rail remains competitive mainly for heavy, homogeneous goods over long distances. Most freight in Europe is indeed transported over distances of less than 200 km and involves consignment weights of up to 30 tonnes (GCEE, 2024) In most such cases, transportation by rail instead of truck is not possible or not competitive. Moreover, taking into account the goods currently transported in intermodal transport units over distances of more than 300 km, the modal shift potential from road to rail would be only 6% in Germany and less than 2% in France.

FRANCO-GERMAN COUNCIL OF ECONOMIC EXPERTS (FGCEE)

That leaves trucks – and, while numerous government incentives currently exist to promote the parallel development of both hydrogen and battery electric vehicle infrastructures, the study is clear in picking a winner.

“Policies should focus on battery-electric trucks (BET) as these represent the most mature and market-ready technology for road freight transport,” reads the the FGCEE statement. “Hence, to ramp-up usage of BET public funding should be used to accelerate the roll-out of fast-charging networks along major corridors and in private depots.”

The appeal was signed by the co-chair of the advisory body on the German side is the chairwoman of the German Council of Economic Experts, Monika Schnitzer. Camille Landais co-chairs the French side. On the German side, the appeal was signed by four of the five experts; Nuremberg-based energy economist Veronika Grimm (who also sits on the National Hydrogen Council, which is committed to promoting H2 trucks and filling stations) did not sign.

You can read an English version of the CAE FGCEE joint statement here.

Electrek’s Take

Hydrogen-sceptical truck maker MAN to produce limited series of 200 vehicles with H2 combustion engines
MAN hydrogen semi; via MAN Trucks.

MAN Trucks’ CEO famously said that it was “impossible” for hydrogen to compete with BEVs, and even committed to building 200 hydrogen-powered semi truck to prove out that hypothesis.

He’s not alone. MAN’s board member for research and development, Frederik Zohm, said that the company is the one saying hydrogen still has years to go. “(MAN) continues to research fuel cell technology based on battery electrics,” he said, in a statement quoted by Hydrogen Insight, before another board member added that, “we (MAN) expect that, in the future, we will be able to best serve the vast majority of our customers’ transport applications with battery-electric trucks.”

With companies like Volvo and Renault and now Mercedes racking up millions of miles on their respective battery electric semi truck fleets, it’s no longer even close. EV is the way.

SOURCE | IMAGES: CAE FGCEE; via Electrive.

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Quick Charge | the terrifying Trump tariffs are finally upon us!

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Quick Charge | the terrifying Trump tariffs are finally upon us!

On today’s tariff-tastic episode of Quick Charge, we’ve got tariffs! Big ones, small ones, crazy ones, and fake ones – but whether or not you agree with the Trump tariffs coming into effect tomorrow, one thing is absolutely certain: they are going to change the price you pay for your next car … and that price won’t be going down!

Everyone’s got questions about what these tariffs are going to mean for their next car buying experience, but this is a bigger question, since nearly every industry in the US uses cars and trucks to move their people and products – and when their costs go up, so do yours.

Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple PodcastsSpotifyTuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.

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Got news? Let us know!
Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show.

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SunZia Wind’s massive 2.4 GW project hits a big milestone

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SunZia Wind’s massive 2.4 GW project hits a big milestone

GE Vernova has produced over half the turbines needed for SunZia Wind, which will be the largest wind farm in the Western Hemisphere when it comes online in 2026.

GE Vernova has manufactured enough turbines at its Pensacola, Florida, factory to supply over 1.2 gigawatts (GW) of the turbines needed for the $5 billion, 2.4 GW SunZia Wind, a project milestone. The wind farm will be sited in Lincoln, Torrance, and San Miguel counties in New Mexico.

At a ribbon-cutting event for Pensacola’s new customer experience center, GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik noted that since 2023, the company has invested around $70 million in the Pensacola factory.

The Pensacola investments are part of the announcement GE Vernova made in January that it will invest nearly $600 million in its US factories and facilities over the next two years to help meet the surging electricity demands globally. GE Vernova says it’s expecting its investments to create more than 1,500 new US jobs.

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Vic Abate, CEO of GE Vernova Wind, said, “Our dedicated employees in Pensacola are working to address increasing energy demands for the US. The workhorse turbines manufactured at this world-class factory are engineered for reliability and scalability, ensuring our customers can meet growing energy demand.”

SunZia Wind and Transmission will create US history’s largest clean energy infrastructure project.

Read more: The largest clean energy project in US history closes $11B, starts full construction


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