The Rainforest Action Network supported by a great many non-government agencies has created an interactive website packed with data and published a report titled BANKING ON CLIMATE CHAOS 2021.
Here are just four excerpts from this report:
In the 5 years since the Paris Agreement, the world’s 60 biggest banks have financed fossil fuels to the tune of $3.8 trillion. Runaway funding for fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure fuels climate chaos and threatens the lives and livelihoods of millions.
These banks poured a total of $3.8 trillion into fossil fuels from 2016–2020. Fossil fuel financing dropped 9% last year, parallel to the global drop in fossil fuel demand and production due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And yet 2020 levels remained higher than in 2016, the year immediately following the adoption of the Paris Agreement. The overall fossil fuel financing trend of the last five years is still heading definitively in the wrong direction, reinforcing the need for banks to establish policies that lock in the fossil fuel financing declines of 2020, lest they snap back to business-as-usual in 2021
JPMorgan Chase remains the world’s worst banker of fossil fuels over this time period, though its funding did drop significantly last year. Citi follows as the second-worst fossil bank, followed by Wells Fargo, Bank of America, RBC, and MUFG. Barclays is the worst in Europe and Bank of China is the worst in China.
...the current wave of bank commitments to reduce their financed emissions to “net zero by 2050,” as well as related policies like measuring and disclosing financed emissions, and emphasizes that no bank making a climate commitment for 2050 should be taken seriously unless it also acts on fossil fuels in 2021. Moreover, until the banks prove otherwise, the “net” in “net zero” leaves room for emissions targets that fall short of what the science demands, based on copious offsetting or absurd assumptions about future carbon-capture schemes, as well as the rights violations and fraud that often come hand in hand with offsetting and carbon markets.
According to the report, between 2016 and 2020 the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the National Australia Bank (NAB) committed $6.24 billion and $4.43 billion respectively to the total global financing of the fossil fuel industry. While the ANZ Bank contributed a hefty total of $15.22 billion and Westpac $6.5 billion.
All four banks financed fossil fuel expansion by the top 100 fossil fuel companies, as well as financing fuel production based on tar sands and LNG.
The Commonwealth Bank, ANZ and Westpac financed ventures in the Arctic and offshore areas.
ANZ also financed production companies involved in fracking.
All four banks financed coal mining and coal power companies over the same five year period.
The four banks were given dismal policy scores out of 200 points, ranging from 13.5 (Westpac), 14 (NAB), 18 (CBA) to 22.5 (ANZ).
Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison, along with 39 other heads of government, will be attending a U.S. Leaders Summit on Climate on April 22 and 23, which will be live streamed for public viewing.
Given his lack of enthusiasm for any “zero emissions” target and his government's paucity of effective climate change mitigation policies, it is highly likely that at this summit Morrison – rather than representing the nation – will be representing the commercial interests of these banks, along with those of the fossil fuel mining & production sectors .
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