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Indigenous Environmental Network partnering with Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, Oil Change International, Reclaim Finance, and the Sierra Club has released the Banking on Climate Change 2020 report, which has been endorsed by over 250 organizations from 45 countries around the world.
The latest version of the most comprehensive report on global banks’ fossil fuel financing, Banking on Climate Change 2020 , reveals that 35 global banks have expanded the fossil fuel sector with more than $2.7 trillion in the four years since the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. From fracking to LNGs to pipeline projects, the report shows how banks are funding Indigenous land grabs, the violation of Indigenous rights and eco-colonialism.
The report finds banks like JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi and Bank of America have funded TC Energy (formerly TransCanada) with $59 Billion for dirty tar sand projects that Indigenous communities have been fighting for over a decade, such as the Keystone XL and Coastal GasLink projects. These four banks account for 30 % of all fossil fuel financing of the 35 major global banks funding climate change.
$62 Billion has been funneled to Enbridge for their massive dirty tar sands pipeline, Line 3.This project is a direct violation of Ojibwe treaty rights and is an illegal land grab funded by the banking industry.
Banking on Climate Change 2020 highlights the banks’ unacceptably poor performance on human rights by highlighting bank financing of particular case study projects — from the Indigenous-opposed Line 3 pipeline in North America, to fracking in Argentina’s Vaca Muerta basin, to a proposed coal mine expansion in Poland.
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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.”
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.