Press release

Paris, May 3rd 2022 – BNP Paribas published its « climate analytics and alignment report » (1), announcing new decarbonization targets and new restrictions on fossil fuel. Reclaim Finance acknowledges the progress made by BNP Paribas but regrets that the new restrictions will not stop the bank from directly and indirectly supporting fossil fuel expansion. Reclaim Finance calls on BNP Paribas and other financial institutions to cease support for all new fossil fuel projects, recognized by the scientific community and the International Energy Agency (IEA) as a key.

Member of the Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), BNP Paribas has pledged to achieve carbon neutrality following a 1.5°C pathway by 2050. The group announced new targets:

  • Reducing by at least 10% its financed carbon emissions intensity by 2025 (from 2020 baseline)
  • Reducing by 12% its credit exposure to the upstream oil and gas industry by 2025 (from 2020 baseline)
  • Reducing by 25% its credit exposure to the upstream oil industry by 2025 (from 2020 baseline)

Louis-Maxence Delaporte, campaigner at Reclaim Finance, commented: “BNP Paribas unveiled decarbonization targets that seem, at first sight, ambitious and even better than the ones from the IEA Net Zero scenario. However, a closer look shows that the credit exposure reduction targets only apply to loans (2) while many oil and gas companies use bond emissions managed by BNP Paribas (3). While other banks such as ING Group exclude all financial services dedicated to new fields, BNP Paribas misses the point by not ending all support to new oil and gas projects, the red line defined by the IEA to limit global warming to +1.5°C by 2050 (4).”

BNP Paribas also reinforced its unconventional oil and gas exclusion policy:

  • The group will not finance or invest in companies with more than 10% of their activities (5) coming from tar sands and shale oil and gas, or deriving more than 10% of their activities from the Arctic area (6), as well as in companies that produce out of oil and gas reserves in the Amazon or that develop new related infrastructures. Capital market activities are not mentioned in the group exclusion policy, meaning that BNP Paribas can still participate in bond issuance as well as equity issuance.
  • BNP Paribas excludes project financing to oil and gas fields and infrastructures in the Arctic and Amazon areas.

“Excluding companies with more than 10% of their activities coming from tar sands, shale and Arctic oil and gas is going in the right direction. However, even this low relative threshold does not rule out support for the more diversified oil and gas companies such as TotalEnergies, BP or Eni despite the fact that they are currently developing new projects, including in unconventional oil and gas extraction. This is a major problem given the bank has already granted such companies more than $140 billion since the Paris Agreement (7).” concludes Louis-Maxence Delaporte, campaigner at Reclaim Finance

BNP’s policy also makes an exception for companies with the “most credible” transition plans based on criteria such as their public commitment to align with the 1.5°C pathway. However, the criteria do not clearly rule out oil and gas developers and could end up creating exceptions for companies with 1.5°C-incompatible plans.

Notes :

  1. BNP Paribas, Climate analytics and alignment report, 2022.
  2. BNP Paribas indicates that they could gradually include some of their capital market activities.
  3. In 2022, BNP Paribas has already been involved in several bond emissions: €2bn for BP, $2,5bn for EIG Global Energy Partners (detained by Saudi Aramco) and €1.75 bn for TotalEnergies.
  4. International Energy Agency, Net Zero by 2050, 2021.
  5. BNP Paribas assesses companies using the reserves for pure players and revenue for diversified companies.
  6. BNP Paribas modified its definition of the Arctic area. The group adopts the one from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP), except for Norwegian operated areas.
  7. Data from the Banking On Climate Chaos 2022.
  8. Fracking, tar sands and Arctic drillings (as per BNP Paribas Arctic definition) represent 12% of the major’s oil and gas production. However with an exclusion threshold on revenue and with both fracking and tar sands on one side and Arctic oil and gas on the other side, TotalEnergies is not excluded with the 10% threshold.

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