The 2023 Banking on Climate Chaos report, released this April, is the most comprehensive analysis on fossil fuel banking produced to date. This 14th annual version of the report continued to investigate the fossil fuel financing and policies of the world’s 60 largest banks.
Once again, the numbers were staggering. The report found that fossil fuel financing from the world’s 60 largest banks has reached nearly $5.5 trillion USD in the seven years since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, with $668 billion financed in 2022 alone.
When it comes down to climate action, it’s not about pledges or commitments, it’s about cash. This report shows exactly where the money goes.
This year, Canadian bank Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) was found to be neck in neck with JP Morgan Chase who has dominated the position of the worst financier of fossil fuels each year since the Paris Agreement.
In the fourteen years since BOCC was developed, it has evolved into the go-to resource for financial data on fossil fuel projects and associated human rights violations underwritten by the biggest banks in the world. And it appears to be grabbing the attention of the finance industry as well. In August, just a few months after the report was launched, The Royal Bank of Canada, one of the biggest fossil fuel funders on the planet, announced that they would be hiring a climate transition chief to “orchestrate, unify, and advance” the company’s climate-related activities.
As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change affirmed in its March 2023 report, the window of opportunity to remain below 1.5˚C and to build a secure, liveable, and sustainable future is rapidly closing.
To give humanity a chance at avoiding unacceptable harm to millions of people alive today and countless generations to come, fossil fuel expansion must stop. And while fossil fuel companies are the ones dousing the planet in oil, gas, and coal, big banks hold the matches. Without financing, fossil fuels won’t burn.
You can read the report and interact with the data at www.bankingonclimatechaos.org
The Banking on Climate Chaos Impact
- It is a critical tool for activists, politicians, the media, and concerned shareholders
- It provides synthesized data and analysis for the movement that is not available anywhere else
- It informs RAN’s campaign strategy
- It proves that our demands on banks for climate action are backed by real numbers
