By Rainforest Action Network
The recently released 15th annual Banking on Climate Chaos report employs a new, expanded data set that credits each bank making financial contributions to a deal instead of only crediting banks in leading roles. It cuts through greenwash, covering the world’s top 60 banks’ lending and underwriting to over 4,200 fossil fuel companies and the financing of companies causing the degradation of the Amazon and Arctic.
Since the Paris Agreement in 2016, the world’s 60 largest private banks financed fossil fuels with USD $6.9 trillion. Nearly half—$3.3 trillion—went towards fossil fuel expansion. In 2023, banks financed $705 billion in fossil fuel financing with $347 billion going to fossil fuel expansion alone.
JP Morgan Chase is the #1 fossil fuel financier in the world, committing $40.8billion dollars to fossil fuel companies in 2023. They’re also #1 for fossil fuel expansion in 2023, while Mizuho shot up to second place in the report in both fossil fuel financing ($37.0 billion) and financing for the expansion of fossil fuels ($18.8 billion). The worst funder of fossil fuel expansion since the Paris Agreement is Citibank, providing $204 billion since 2016.
Recently, some banks increased their exposure to climate risk by rolling back their already weak policies. Bank of America, which ranks third on the 2023 list of worst fossil fuel funders, is a glaring example: they dropped their exclusions on Arctic drilling, thermal coal, and coal-fired power plants; they have neither energy ratio disclosures nor near-term absolute emission targets, and they abandoned the Equator principles. At the time of the report publication, they are the only bank major exhibiting all of these climate policy failures at once.
In an ongoing effort to continually improve the accuracy and breadth of the report, this year’s report has significantly adjusted the methodology by incorporating more primary sources. These sources track bank participation in corporate finance deals, including bonds, loans, and share issuances. Previous years of the report only credited banks in leading roles; this year each banks’ financial contributions to a deal are exposed. Every bank in the report was contacted to confirm and given an opportunity to review the deals attributed to them.
The report shows high bank financing for the most climate-damaging fossil fuel practices. In 2023, the worst funders of tar sands extraction are CIBC, RBC, Scotiabank, Toronto-Dominion Bank and Mizuho; while Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) committed $512 million to companies doing ultra deepwater offshore drilling; JP Morgan Chase financed fracking with $6billion, and CITIC backed coal mining with $7.6 billion. The top 60 banks by asset size unabashedly financed the harmful practices to sensitive biomes: UniCredit committed $265 million to companies involved in Arctic drillingand Bank of America committed to companies extracting oil & gas in the Amazon biome to the tune of $162 million.
Banking on Climate Chaos is authored by Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, the Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development, Indigenous Environmental Network, Oil Change International, Reclaim Finance, Sierra Club, and Urgewald. It has been endorsed by 589 organizations in 69 countries.
Source: ran.org, May 13, 2024. The complete report is available on the website.