Major banks around the world continue to fund trillion-dollar fossil fuel companies.
A new report, released Wednesday from a collection of climate organizations entitled Banking on Climate Chaos 2021, finds that 60 of the world’s largest commercial and investment banks have collectively collected 3.8 trillion dollars in fossil fuels from 2016 to 2020, the five following the Paris Agreement. signed.
“This report serves as a reality check for banks that think vague ‘zero-zero’ targets are enough to stop the climate crisis,” said Lorne Stockman, a senior research analyst at Oil Change International, one of the organizations authors of the report. in a statement released with the report. “Our future is where money flows and in 2020 these banks have plowed billions to lock us into a new climate chaos.”
Annually, total fossil fuel funding fell 9% in 2020. But the report attributes this to Covid-19-related demand restrictions.
The report also found that “the financing of fossil fuels … of the 60 largest commercial and investment banks in the world was higher in 2020 than in 2016,” the first full year that the pleasure was in effect Paris climate change. It is worth noting that President Donald Trump withdrew from the international agreement in 2017. President Joe Biden rejoined the Paris Agreement on his first day in office.
The three banks that financed more fossil fuels in 2020, according to the report, were JPMorgan Chase, with $ 51.3 billion; Cite to $ 48.4 billion; and Bank of America with $ 42.1 billion.
A JPMorgan Chase representative told CNBC Make It that the bank could not comment on a third-party report. But the bank directed CNBC Make It toward its initiatives against climate change, including “adopting a financing commitment that fits the goals of the Paris Agreement” and facilitating sustainable, clean financing. of $ 200 billion in 2025.
Citi directed CNBC Make It to a blog post published Tuesday by Val Smith, the bank’s chief sustainability officer. In the message, Citi said it will work with existing fossil fuel banking customers to move first to a public report on greenhouse gas emissions and then to a phasing out of funding offered to companies that do not meet the compliance with carbon reduction standards.
“As the world’s most global bank, we recognize that we are connected to many carbon-intensive sectors that have driven global economic development for decades,” Smith wrote. “Our work to achieve clean net emissions by 2050 makes it imperative that we work with our customers, including our fossil fuel customers, to help them and the energy systems we all rely on to move towards a zero net economy. “.
Bank of America did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
The Banking on Climate Chaos 2021 report is presented as indicators show that global economies are currently not on track to meet the emission reductions established as part of the 2015 Paris Agreement.
The 2020 report is the twelfth annual, although the scope of the report has expanded over that time. The report was a collaboration of seven nonprofits: Rainforest Action Network, Bank Track, Indigenous Environmental Network, Oil Change International, Reclaim Finance and Sierra Club.
The report’s authors group data on bank lending and underwriting using the Bloomberg League credit methodology, meaning that credit is split between banks that play a major role in a particular transaction and uses Bloomberg data Finance LP and the global coal output list.
In addition, banks have the opportunity to take into account the findings. “The results of the draft report are shared with banks in advance and given the opportunity to comment on funding and policy evaluations,” the report says.
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