Fossil fuel finance report 2023
eco-union, together with over 600 organisations from more than 70 countries, has endorsed this year’s edition of the annual fossil fuel finance report: Banking on Climate Chaos 2023.
The report was published on 13 April, by Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, Indigenous Environmental Network, Oil Change International, Reclaim Finance, Sierra Club, and urgewald.
It looks at the world’s 60 largest private sector banks, and finds that together they financed fossil fuels with $5.5 trillion since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, with $673 billion in 2022 alone. Fossil fuel financing plateaued in 2020, rebounded in 2021, and leveled out again in 2022 owing to unusual geopolitical and economic conditions, not shifts in bank policy.
For the first time since 2019, a Canadian bank is the #1 annual financier of fossil fuels rather than US bank JP Morgan Chase. Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) showered fossil fuel projects with $42.1 billion dollars in 2022.
- Worst in Canada: RBC.
- Worst in the US: JPMorgan Chase
- Worst in the UK: Barclays.
- Worst in the EU: BNP Paribas.
- Worst in Japan: MUFG.
- Worst in China: ICBC.
The report lays bare the shocking fact that even as fossil fuel companies made $4 trillion in profits in 2022, banks still provided $673 billion in financing. Remarkably, this happened while oil majors like Exxon Mobil and Shell PLC asked for $0 financing from banks in 2022.
While Europeans and Ukrainians called for a transition to renewables to stop funding Russian atrocities, fossil fuel companies doubled down on expansion and weakened their climate commitments.
The top 30 companies expanding LNG used the crisis to secure nearly 50% more financing in 2022 compared to 2021 from the banks in the report — even as most energy experts agree that the LNG expansion plans in Europe are unnecessary, and new projects would contribute to a supply glut and long-term dependence on this fossil fuel.
At bankingonclimatechaos.org you can download the report, interact with the data, explore the case studies, and take action.