Our Planet Climate and Geopolitics
The world’s 60 biggest banks provided $705.8 billion in financing to fossil fuel companies last year. It’s a big number, but it’s also the lowest level in the past eight years and a drop of around 21 per cent since the Paris Agreement. Some of the financing gap is being filled by private equity and other non-bank lenders, according to a report published by campaign groups including the Rainforest Action Network. JP Morgan was the biggest fossil fuel lender, committing $41 billion. Financing for liquefied natural gas, a sector that’s booming as customers of Russian gas look elsewhere for supplies, rose slightly from $116 billion in 2022 to $121 billion last year. Efforts to steer bank capital away from fossil fuels appear to have hit a plateau since Mark Carney launched the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero in 2021. Last year, just nine out of the 60 banks covered in the report strengthened their fossil fuel exclusion policies.