KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 5 (Bernama) -- Bursa Malaysia closed higher, buoyed by Bank Negara Malaysia’s (BNM) decision to maintain the Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) at 2.75 per cent, alongside positive cues from Wall Street. At 5 pm, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI (FBM KLCI) rose 19.30 points, or 1.19 per cent, to 1,635.86 from Wednesday’s close of 1,616.56. The benchmark index opened 6.72 points higher at 1,623.28, and fluctuated between an intraday high of 1,642.44 and a low of 1,622.62 during the trading session. However, market breadth was negative, with losers outnumbering gainers 723 to 497, while 466 counters were unchanged, 1,075 untraded and 10 suspended. Turnover rose to 3.74 billion units valued at RM3.61 billion compared with yesterday’s 2.81 billion units valued at RM2.57 billion.
Ever since the 2015 Paris Agreement included a call for private funding to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions , the finance sector’s role in climate action has been under growing scrutiny. Major banks and asset managers around the world have made net-zero commitments , leading many to believe that these financial giants would bear much of the cost of decarbonizing the global economy. However, this optimism is misplaced and dangerous, according to the Institute of International Finance (IIF), an industry group that includes members such as BlackRock Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and UBS Group AG . The IIF recently published a report challenging the idea that the finance sector can single-handedly drive the energy transition. For the past several years, there has been a “ finance-centric theory of change ” circulating among policymakers and regulators, which assumes that if banks’ portfolios are aligned with a net-zero future , the global economy will naturally decarbonize. But th...