Coal hypocrisy: European banks’ double standard on thermal and metallurgical coal in Australia

Reports

20 October 2026

A decade ago, more than 70 financial institutions refused to finance some or all thermal coal mines and their related infrastructure projects in Australia’s Galilee Basin. Those refusals stopped the basin from full development and became the foundation of hundreds of bank coal policies worldwide. Today the same banks are financing the expansion of metallurgical coal in the Bowen Basin, 150 kilometers east. The only difference is the label: met coal makes steel, so banks exempt it from the restrictions they apply to thermal coal.

Key findings:

0$ billion
provided by 19 European banks to companies planning met coal expansion in the Bowen Basin, 2021–2025
  • The money. Between 2021 and 2025, international banks channelled US$106 billion to companies planning met coal expansion in the Bowen Basin. 19 European banks provided more than a quarter of it.
  • The loophole. All 19 European banks restrict project finance for thermal coal mines. Only seven restrict met coal projects — and not one restricts finance to the companies developing them, which is how these mines are actually funded.
  • The stakes. If all planned expansion proceeds, emissions from the basin’s coal would reach roughly 800 million tonnes of CO₂ a year — more than the 705 Mt that made the Galilee Basin unbankable.

Banks must close the met coal loophole. Exclusions should cover not only metallurgical coal mine projects but the companies developing them, screened against urgewald’s Metallurgical Coal Exit List, and apply at group level across all financial services. Several of the Bowen Basin’s flagship projects have yet to reach a final investment decision: a refusal by a critical mass of banks could still force their developers to reconsider, as it did in the Galilee a decade ago.