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From 2016 to 2020, JPMorgan Chase has been the world’s largest banker of fossil fuels - pouring more than $316 billion into businesses destroying our environment. 

It’s incredible. Shareholders at international bank Standard Chartered are publicly calling out their company’s climate investments - for the first time ever! And they’re doing it while Standard Chartered’s CEO is chairing an international meeting of businesses, to talk about sustainability 😳.

We’ve heard every sorry excuse in the book from the big banks as to why they’re still financing coal, oil and gas. But here at Bank On Our Future we love nothing more than proving it’s just a load of hot air.

I am writing to you from a coalition of environmental advocacy groups focused on shifting finance and investment away from fossil fuels.

Banks continue to fan the flames of the climate emergency - movements are mobilising to stop them.

Back in April of this year, a huge and impressive coalition of hundreds of Indigenous, youth, grandmothers, and other climate activists held a huge rally outside Wells Fargo HQ.

The streets of Frankfurt have not seen anything like it for a long time. The conservative financial centre of Germany, saw an estimated 15,000 people take to the streets demanding action on climate. 

The last month was confirmed as the hottest ever recorded, with scientists warning of increased extreme weather events.

The Swiss financial sector is responsible for catastrophic climate impacts and human rights violations, but Swiss activists are rising up for change and putting a stop to that.

The Olympics are currently in full swing in Tokyo, so Japan is in the media spotlight. But there are no gold medals for Japanese banks when it comes to fossil fuel financing.

Like banks in other countries, Italy’s biggest banks are dragging their feet on bringing fossil fuel financing to an end. One bank, Unicredit, has made progress but recently breached its own coal policies. Another, Intesa Sanpaolo, hasn’t even tried.

This is what campaign pressure can achieve. A private equity mogul has left the Biden administration’s climate team after an outcry from campaigners.

Wimbledon may be over for another year, but championship sponsor HSBC continues to serve up financing for fossil fuel companies. Just as well there was plenty of activist action over the last couple of weeks to remind everyone of HSBC’s contribution to the climate crisis.

The climate movement is not alone in pushing banks to quit their fossil fuel addiction. A group of investors, led by influential campaign group ShareAction, has written to major banks around the world, urging them to move much faster in ending their support of fossil fuel companies. With international climate and environment meetings on the horizon, this latest move puts banks under even more pressure to act quickly.

Leaders of the richest nations met in the UK last weekend, and high on the agenda was the climate crisis. So it was the perfect time to spotlight the role banks are playing in making our planet hotter.

HSBC’s annual shareholder meeting on Friday was a mixed bag, with one step towards effective climate policies offset by two steps back. On the one hand, the climate resolution was voted through. On the other, HSBC executives were evasive on climate questions from shareholders.