World’s Banks Failing Climate Fight

Study: global banks 'failing miserably' on climate crisis by funneling trillions into fossil fuels; Analysis of 35 leading investment banks shows financing of more than $2.66tn for fossil fuel industries since the Paris agreement

Patrick Greenfield and Kalyeena Makortoff, 18 March 2020 (UK Guardian)

The world’s largest investment banks have funneled more than [$2.66 trillion] into fossil fuels since the Paris agreement…JP Morgan Chase, whose economists warned that the climate crisis threatens the survival of humanity last month, has been the largest financier of fossil fuels in the four years since the agreement…[Analysis of the 35 leading global investment banks found] that financing for the companies most aggressively expanding in new fossil fuel extraction since the Paris agreement has surged by nearly 40% in the last year…[but the last 12 months has seen many investment banks announce financing restrictions on coal, Arctic oil and gas, and tar sands extraction…[Alongside JP Morgan Chase, the US banks Wells Fargo, Citi and Bank of America account] for nearly a third of the £2.2tn of financial services since the Paris agreement…

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[Big banks overall have increased their funding in the four years since Paris to companies with significant Arctic oil and gas reserves…Barclays, which has been under increasing investor pressure over its environmental stance, has been the top European financier of fossil fuels in the last four years… Fracking has been the focus of intense business activity by investment banks since the Paris agreement, with JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Bank of America leading £241.53bn of financing, much of it linked to the Permian basin in Texas…The Royal Bank of Canada and Toronto Dominion led financing for tar sands crude oil projects in Alberta, north-west Canada, which have caused widespread damage to ecosystems…[The big-four Chinese banks have dominated financing for coal mining and coal power] and have no policies restricting business practices…” click here for more

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