A top UK banker has criticised climate protesters who want to switch off today's energy sources.
At a conference in Saudi Arabia, HSBC chief executive Noel Quinn said abandoning oil and gas immediately would harm society.
And he added that it was unhelpful to sort companies into buckets of "good" and "bad".
The banker argued that the transition to net-zero would be hampered if banks pulled financing to oil and gas companies.
"There are many protesters taking place now, where people just want to switch off today's energy sources," Mr Quinn said.
"You can't. It's not right to do that to society, and society would not react well to that. So we have to continue to support (existing energy companies) today as well."
Rebuke to campaigners
The comments are a rebuke to climate campaigners who have pushed banks including HSBC to stop financing fossil-fuel projects to protect the environment.
The Telegraph says that HSBC and other major banks argue that continued investment is needed to meet the planet's ongoing energy needs and say many oil and gas companies require funding to invest in the shift towards greener forms of power.
Activists have become increasingly disruptive in efforts to draw attention to what they argue is a climate emergency.
Extinction Rebellion demonstrators blocked several major bridges in central London and Just Stop Oil protestors threw soup at a Van Gogh painting.
Mr Quinn was speaking about the future of green finance at an investment summit in Riyadh, an event dubbed "Davos in the desert".
The HSBC chief has repeatedly warned against a strategy of simply cutting off polluting energy companies.
Work together
"We need to work together to leverage the funding and engineering capacity of today's companies to build the future," Mr Quinn said.
The banking boss also urged global leaders to get inflation under control because the cost of rolling out green technologies will be expensive with persistently high interest rates.
"Now, I'm not an economist, I'm just a simple banker, but I just know the maths will be a lot more difficult for everybody if we don't get that bridge built with an effective cost of capital in the near-term," he said.
- Energy Voice reports today that that Government figures show the UK is currently on track to miss legal climate targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Data from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy reveals that Britain is projected to emit nearly double the amount of pollution as it should do under its 2030s goals.