Banking on climate change 2020 – fossil fuels report card
The latest version of the most comprehensive report on fossil fuel financing by international banks, “Banking on Climate Change 2020,” was released today.
The “Banking on Climate Change 2020” fossil fuel finance report is a collaboration between Reclaim Finance, Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, Indigenous Environmental Network, Oil Change International and Sierra Club, and is supported by more than 250 organisations from 45 countries around the world, including Friends of the Earth France.
The report covers 35 major international banks, including the four French banks BNP Paribas, Société Générale, Crédit Agricole and Natixis. It totals the loans and equity and bond issues of 2,100 companies in the coal, oil and gas sectors worldwide over the period 2016-2019.
Important to remember
- The report reveals that international banks have provided nearly $2.7 trillion in financing for fossil fuels since the adoption of the Paris Accord, with the volume of financing increasing every year since 2016.
- BNP Paribas ranks as the second-most bank in the world to have increased its financing between 2018 and 2019, with an increase of 72%.
- As the 13th-largest financier of all fossil fuels, and the third- and seventh-largest financiers of oil and gas production companies in the offshore and Arctic, BNP Paribas has a problem to solve with the majors.
The data also shows that the majority of the banks analysed, including Crédit Agricole and Société Générale, have increased their support for the 100 companies that are planning the most new coal, oil and gas projects and confirms Société Générale’s growing appetite for shale gas.
