New report out today shows the 33 global banks funding the climate crisis. BlackRock is the top shareholder at each of the four biggest banks.
Today marks the release of Banking on Climate Change: Fossil Fuel Finance Report Card 2019. This 10th annual bank report card was published by the Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, Indigenous Environmental Network, Oil Change International, and Honor the Earth, and endorsed by more than 160 organizations around the world.
For the first time, this report totals the lending and underwriting from 33 global banks to 1,800 companies across the fossil fuel industry as a whole. In addition, the report grades banks’ policies regarding restrictions on financing for fossil fuel expansion and commitments to phase-out of fossil fuel financing on a 1.5°C-aligned trajectory.
The report finds that 33 of the world’s largest banks have pumped $1.9 trillion into the fossil fuel sector since the Paris Agreement was adopted three years ago, with financing on the rise each year. This is dangerously at odds with the steep cuts to emissions we need now.
It also shows that fossil fuel financing is dominated by the big U.S. banks, with JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi, and Bank of America filling the top four spots, along with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley rounding out the top dozen.
Though the report does not cover asset managers, BlackRock is one of the top shareholders of all the worst global banks. These investments highlight BlackRock’s enormous climate risk and its failure to push companies in its portfolios in the the right direction.
The report has been covered in Fast Company, American Banker, on Bloomberg and many other places. See the RAN website: ran.org/bankingonclimatechange2019 to download the report, interact with the data, read the case studies, and more.
