In April, BNP Paribas, Société Générale and Crédit Agricole all ruled out finance to coal mining projects in the Galilee Basin in Queenland, Australia. The planned new coal mine and port is expected to have devastating effects on the Great Barrier Reef, a World Heritage Site. Read more.

In May, Crédit Agricole announced at its annual general meeting in Lille that it is ending its multi-million euro funding for coal mining projects and companies. Less than seven months before the United Nations conference on climate change in Paris (COP 21), Crédit Agricole became the second major bank in the world - after Bank of America - to cut its funding for the coal mining sector. Friends of the Earth France and BankTrack have welcomed this step forward and now call on Crédit Agricole to deliver in full for the climate by signing the 'Paris Pledge' and thus end completely the bank's support to the coal industry. Read more.   

In May, Bank of America and Crédit Agricole became the first major banks to announce plans to stop financing coal mining. These announcements marked a hugely significant win and a breakthrough moment in the fight to end financing for the coal industry. The second half of 2015, in the run-up to the make-or-break UN climate change conference in Paris, then saw important coal finance restrictions being announced by institutions including Citi, Natixis, Goldman Sachs, Société Générale, BNP Paribas, ING and RBS. All these moves are captured here – significantly, a number of banks have chosen not just to get out of coal mining, but are also extending into ending their support for coal power. 

In June, the three largest French banks, BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole and Société Génerale, have said they will not finance the Rampal coal power project, on the edge of the Sundarbans mangrove forest in Bangladesh. The move comes six months after two Norwegian pension funds withdrew from India's National Thermal Power Corporation, one of the companies involved in developing the plant. Read more.

Credit Agricole, in a letter to answer several requests from NGOs on coal mine and export projects in Australia, stated that the bank had "refused to participate in financing the Abbot Point Terminal in the State of Queensland". The paragraph referred to "the expansion of coal ports in Australia, which may have a negative impact on the Great Barrier Reef". 

In 2014, JP Morgan, Cit, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland all responded to a worldwide pressure campaign of NGOs, including Banktrack, urgewald, Greenpeace and Market Forces, by announcing that they would not help finance the expansion of the Abbot Point coal terminal in Australia. While ANZ and others remain tied to the deal for now, these banks did the right thing in foregoing this destructive deal that threatens the Great Barrier Reef.