Banktrack Blog

Coal finance still central to the banking sector’s ‘Shorting the climate’ business model – New finance report card illustrates the scale of the problem and demands real climate action

Jun 172016

By Greig Aitken, BankTrack, 16 June 2016

Published earlier this week by BankTrack, Rainforest Action Network, the Sierra Club and Oil Change International, the Fossil Fuel Finance Report Card 2016 – entitled ‘Shorting the Climate’ – has already been making waves. Thanks to Naomi Klein , Bill McKibben and many others for pushing #shortingtheclimate out there on social media: it’s vital that the call goes out widely to the global banking sector urging an end to its multi-billion dollar support for fossil fuels. Continue reading »

RBS bank a wolf in sheep’s clothing on renewables

Apr 202016

By Move Your Money UK, 19 April 2016

Campaigners celebrated a momentous announcement yesterday, when RBS revealed that it has ditched a whopping 70% of its fossil fuel investments in the last year alone, whilst doubling funding for renewable energy, to £1 billion. RBS claims that this makes it ‘the largest lender to the UK renewable energy sector’.

This is quite some turnaround from the bank formerly known as ‘the oil and gas bank’, which was found to be the fourth most invested UK bank in fossil fuels in our Divest! campaign, with £14.4 billion in fossil fuel extraction in 2012 alone. For many campaigners who have worked tirelessly to get RBS out of fossil fuels, such as Global Justice Now, Friends of the Earth Scotland, the Robin Hood Tax, People & Planet, Fossil Free UK, Platform and so many others, this was a moment to celebrate.

The cracks in coal financing are getting bigger – Round-up of a fruitful bank AGM season

Jun 032015

By Yann Louvel and Greig Aitken, BankTrack, 3 June 2015

It must have been a bewildering scene at the Paris headquarters of Crédit Agricole last Wednesday when the news came through that rival bank BNP Paribas would be joining other French multinationals such as EDF, Engie, Renault Nissan and Air France as official sponsors of the United Nations Climate Summit (COP21) to be held in the French capital at the end of the year. Continue reading »

BNP Paribas: the bank for a changing climate

Apr 142014

The French banking giant claims to be “combatting climate change”, yet it is the only international private sector bank supporting India’s devastating new “Ultra Mega” Tata Mundra coal power plant. By Yann Louvel, Climate and Energy Campaign Coordinator, BankTrack, 14 April 2014

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) has just launched its 5^th assessment report on climate change mitigation in Berlin, the most comprehensive assessment of potential solutions to the climate crisis yet seen. It clearly shows that we can stop the worst of climate change by transforming our energy systems, and that for this we must shift the patterns of investments in the energy sector now.

Investor Summit: Bank of America puts our Climate at Risk

Jan 282014

By Yann Louvel, BankTrack, 28 January 2014

Earlier this month, Bank of America participated in the 2014 Investor Summit on Climate Risk, as the “convening sponsor” of the event. While there was a lot of talk about the urgency of the problem of tackling climate change, there were a few things the bank didn’t talk about. For starters, their role in financing the coal industry.

Seven of Bloomberg’s top ten “Greenest Banks” are “Climate Killers”

Apr 082013

By Yann Louvel, on Apr 8, 2013. Climate and Energy Campaign Coordinator for the BankTrack network.

Last week, Bloomberg published the results of its third annual ranking of the “world’s greenest banks”: Citi was ranked first, followed by Santander and JPMorgan. The study assesses banks based on their lending to clean-energy projects and reduction in their own power consumption and carbon footprints. However, banks’ support for dirty energy, such as fossil fuel and nuclear power, is notably absent from Bloomberg’s methodology. When the value of banks’ finance for fossil fuels so often dwarves their investments in renewables, Bloomberg’s data does not even tell half of the story.