New research into finance for the fossil fuel industry provided under the Equator Principles –  banks’ own rules for financing large infrastructure projects – has found that since the Paris Climate Agreement was signed at the end of 2015, signatory banks have been involved in financing at least 200 fossil fuel projects. This is despite the Equator Principles including a commitment for signatory banks to “support the objectives of the Paris Agreement”. The projects typically not only have a large adverse impact on the world’s climate but also cause substantial damage to communities and the environment. BankTrack’s new report, “Equator Compliant Climate Destruction: How banks finance fossil fuels under the Equator Principles”, highlights eight climate destructive fossil fuel projects that have been financed ‘under Equator’ since 2016, the first full year after the signing of the Paris Climate Agreement. This is despite the commitment made in the preamble of the Principles “support the objectives” of the Paris agreement.  These fossil fuel projects include the Vung Ang 2 coal power plant in Vietnam which will not only emit large quantities of air pollutants that affect the health of local communities, but in order to build the plant large swathes of forests need to be cleared and thousands of residents relocated. Japanese banks SMBC, MUFG, Mizuho and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings all financed this project. Also, the Coastal GasLink pipeline…

Goldman Sachs announced two days ago that it has joined the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), making it the last of the six major U.S. banks to join. Goldman Sachs poured more than USD 100 billion into fossil fuels in the five years following the Paris Agreement. Today’s announcement did not include targets for phasing out the bank’s funding of fossil fuels, a critical part of reining in its contribution to the climate crisis.  This month, the International Energy Agency released its annual World Energy Outlook, reaffirming that achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and staying within 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming means there can be no more expansion of fossil fuel development starting immediately.  Last week, CEO David Solomon said that Goldman expects to be “in business with people that are investing in their transition,” but the bank has not specified transition criteria for its clients, which include some of the fossil fuel companies with the biggest expansion plans. “It’s significant that every major U.S. bank has recognized the need to achieve net-zero financed emissions by 2050 in order to avert the worst of the climate crisis, but that recognition needs to be paired with action,” said Sierra Club Fossil-Free Finance Campaign Manager Ben Cushing. “It’s simple: hitting the target that Goldman Sachs and other big banks have committed to means stopping financing for the expansion of fossil fuels now. Until they have…

New investigation reveals for the first time how much financial institutions in UK, EU, US, and China could have made from deals with agribusiness firms linked to deforestation and associated abuses. HSBC, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, BNP Paribas, Rabobank, and Bank of China are among the worst offenders. Banks and investors headquartered in the UK, EU, US, and China made an estimated USD 1.74 billion in income from huge investments in agribusiness firms linked to the destruction of climate-critical forests in the five years following the Paris Climate Agreement. A ground-breaking investigation shows major banks, including HSBC, JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, BNP Paribas, Rabobank, and Bank of China are profiting from rainforest destruction, contrary to many of their own public commitments. We analysed over 70,000 share, bond, credit, and underwriting deals struck between financiers headquartered in the UK, EU, US, and China and twenty of the worst agribusiness companies between 2016 and 2020. These companies all have reported links to the destruction of tropical forests and associated human rights abuses in Southeast Asia, Central and West Africa, and Brazil.  The report, Deforestation Dividends, reveals the true scale of banks’ financing of some of the world’s most destructive companies and for the first time provides an estimate of how much income financiers could have made in interest, fees, and dividends from backing the parts of their business that carry the highest deforestation risk - primarily…

The Gidimt’en Checkpoint from the Wet’suwet’en Nation — the same Nation whose protests sparked rail blockades across Canada in 2020 — issued a letter today to over 35 Coastal GasLink (CGL) investors and banks in Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea, and the United States. The letter demands investors and banks — including JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, RBC, Scotiabank, BMO, Royal Dutch Shell, and CaixaBank — cease and withdraw all support from Coastal GasLink and LNG Canada and highlights how financing the project violates Indigenous rights and breaks any investor commitments to racial justice, reconciliation, and social responsibility. Coastal GasLink is a proposed 670-kilometer-long pipeline that would carry fracked gas from northeast BC to a future liquefied natural gas terminal on the coast, LNG Canada, the largest of its kind ever proposed in Canada. Endorsed by over 100 organizations around the world, the #DivestCGL campaign mirrors the pressure tactics which led to 16 insurance companies dropping the Trans Mountain (TMX) pipeline project. The Coastal GasLink pipeline violates Wet’suwet’en rights and title, and lacks consent of Wet’suwet’en Nation hereditary chiefs. The 37 investors and banks targeted by the campaign include Canada’s Big 5 Banks, which last month issued statements committing to justice for Indigenous peoples. RBC sponsored Truth and Reconciliation Week, which included broadcast programs…

Last Friday Wells Fargo announced that it has joined the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), following its commitment in March to reach net-zero emissions by 2050. Wells Fargo poured more than US$ 223 billion into fossil fuels in the five years following the Paris Agreement. Last Friday’s announcement did not include targets for phasing out the bank’s funding of fossil fuels, a critical part of reining in its contribution to the climate crisis. Wells Fargo is the fifth major U.S. bank to join the NZBA, following Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Bank of America, which joined at the initiative’s launch in April, and JPMorgan Chase, which joined last week. This week, the International Energy Agency released its annual World Energy Outlook, reaffirming that achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 and staying within 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming means there can be no more expansion of fossil fuel development starting immediately. “Big banks like Wells Fargo want credit for taking climate action when really they’re just kicking the can down the road,” said Sierra Club Fossil-Free Finance Campaign Manager Ben Cushing. “Achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 means stopping financing for the expansion of fossil fuels now. Without a plan to do that, commitments like this are totally inadequate to meet the scale and urgency of the climate crisis.” Rainforest Action Network Senior Climate and Energy Campaigner Jason Opeña Disterhoft said:…

The announcement was eerily similar to the announcement a week and a half ago, when JP Morgan Chase – the world’s #1 backer of fossil fuels and long time target of the climate movement – also joined the alliance. Chase, like RBC and the other big Canadian banks, continues to invest billions in new fossil fuel projects, and has offered no timelines or targets for reducing its climate harming investments. Keith Stewart, senior energy campaigner at Greenpeace Canada, said: “The world is accelerating toward a zero-carbon economy and Canadian banks are still playing catch up. Until they commit to a near-term phasing out of all financial support for fossil fuels and to fully respect Indigenous rights, they will still be part of the problem.” Canada’s big five banks are all on the list of the top 25 largest funders of fossil fuels on Earth. RBC is Canada’s biggest, and the 5th biggest funder of fossil fuels in the world, having financed over USD 200 billion in coal, oil and gas since the Paris Climate Agreement was signed. As the International Energy Agency just re-iterated again this week, there is no way we can keep global temperatures to a safe 1.5 degrees C and keep developing new coal, oil, and gas projects. In a joint letter to Mark Carney last week signed by over 90 Canadian and global NGO’s, climate groups laid out what we expect from financial institutions who take their role in the climate emergency seriously: Immediately present fossil fuel financing reduction targets…