|
|
|
|
Findings reveal U.S. banks dominated fossil fuel funding, with JPMorgan Chase the worst on climate change by an astonishingly wide margin
|
The Indigenous Environmental Network releases the following Bank on Climate Change Report, in partnership with Rainforest Action Network, Banktrack, Sierra Club, Oil Change International, and Honor the Earth This 10th edition of the Banking on Climate Change report has greatly expanded in scope. For the first time, this report totals the lending and underwriting from 33 global banks to 1,800 companies across the fossil fuel industry as a whole.
Given that there is no room for new fossil fuels in the world’s carbon budget, this report also documents the funding of fossil fuel expansion by aggregating data on which banks are financing 100 top companies that expanding the fossil fuels sector. In addition, the report grades banks’ overall future-facing policies regarding fossil fuels, assessing them on restrictions on financing for fossil fuel expansion and commitments to phase-out of fossil fuel financing on a 1.5°C-aligned trajectory.
Statement by IEN Executive Director, Tom Goldtooth: “These banks are funding a future that will cost the lives of the next seven generations of life and beyond. Indigenous knowledge and western science both clearly demand that we must rapidly divest from fossil fuels in order to avoid complete climate disaster. Any financial institution that cannot read the writing on the wall should be stripped of its social license to operate and be held accountable for their investments because those investments are threatening our very lives.”
Statement by Idle No More SF Bay Area co-founder, Pennie Opal Plant: “At this point, anyone doing business with a financial institution funding fossil fuel projects is harming the sacred system of life. Financial institutions must stop supporting the destruction of what we need to exist. Banks that continue to support fossil fuel corporations are implicated in acts of eco-terrorism.”
New Report Finds Global Banks Have Vastly Increased Financing of Fossil Fuels Across the Globe
Banking on Climate Change 2019 reveals that fossil fuel financing is dominated by the big U.S. banks: the four biggest global bankers of fossil fuels are JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi, and Bank of America. Notably, JPMorgan Chase is by far the worst banker of fossil fuels and fossil fuel expansion — and therefore the world’s worst banker of climate change. Since the Paris Agreement, JPMorgan Chase has provided $196 billion in finance for fossil fuels, 10% of all fossil fuel finance from the 33 major global banks.
Of this $2 trillion, $600 billion went to 100 top companies aggressively expanding fossil fuels. Alarmingly, these findings reveal that the business practices of the world’s major banks continue to be aligned with climate disaster and stand in sharp contrast to the IPCC special report on global warming of 1.5°C, which highlights the need for a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels.
Banking on Climate Change 2019 is the tenth annual fossil fuel report card and the first-ever analysis of funding from the world’s major banks for the fossil fuels sector as a whole. Expanded in scope, the report adds up lending and underwriting to 1,800 companies across the coal, oil and gas sectors globally over the past three years. The report also tracks fossil fuel expansion by aggregating data on which banks are financing 100 top companies expanding fossil fuels.
The report, endorsed by over 150 organizations around the world, reveals that 33 global banks have provided almost $2 trillion to fossil fuel companies since the adoption of the Paris climate accord at the end of 2015. The amount of financing has risen in each of the past two years.
Key Points:
- The largest banks in the world are expanding financial support of fossil fuels when the top scientists of the world say we need a rapid phase-out of fossil fuels.
- 33 of the world’s largest banks have pumped $1.9 trillion into the fossil fuel sector since the Paris Agreement in 2016.
- The top 4 bankers of climate change are ALL headquartered in the United States.
- JPMorgan Chase is the #1 banker of fossil fuels and the #1 banker of 100 top companies expanding fossil fuels.
- Wells Fargo is the world’s #2 Fossil Fuel Bank
- As fossil fuel expansion occurs, Indigenous peoples will encounter increased direct threats across the board, from the points of extraction to the impacts of global temperature rise.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
