Morgan Stanley Follows Citi, BofA in Quitting Climate Group (4)

Morgan Stanley terminated its membership of a major climate-banking group, joining a wave of Wall Street firms that recently quit a global alliance intended to aid the reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions.

Morgan Stanley is leaving the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, the lender said on Thursday. Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. said earlier this week that they were doing the same.

The defections are playing out against a tense political backdrop in the US, as the country’s biggest financial firms find themselves the targets of Republican campaigns that have characterized net zero groups as climate cartels.

Such attacks have picked ...