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“We are on a fast track to climate disaster.” – Antonio Guterres, General Secretary of the UN

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is publishing it’s report on how to avoid the unprecedented heatwaves, terrifying storms, and widespread water shortages that we’re currently on track for.

Banks around the world have billions of dollars in Russia, funding Russia’s biggest fossil fuel companies. Those are the same companies that are feeding Putin’s war chest. The same companies are filling Russian tanks with fuel.

Over the last 6 years, since the Paris Climate Accord, the worlds 60 biggest banks have poured over $4,600,000,000,000 into fossil fuel projects. Your eyes aren’t deceiving you. That’s $4.6 TRILLION dollars being used for more oil rigs, more gas fields, and more coal mines.

The new climate proposals released by Barclays are completely contradictory. On one hand they’re committing to Net Zero by 2050. On the other hand, their new proposals allow them to keep investing in NEW fossil fuels.

An incredible win for campaigners at ShareAction. Through organising shareholders, ShareAction are making HSBC commit to:

✅  Update its coal, oil, and gas policies again before the end of the year.

Banks and financial institutions were too slow to act. Even in the face of Ukrainian tragedy.  They dragged their feet pulling their money out of Russian fossil fuel companies – the same companies funding Putin’s invasion.

The Putin100 are the 100 global financial institutions across the world propping up Putin’s war machine with investments, insurance and financing for Russian fossil fuel companies. These companies are helping to fund Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine: https://putin100.org/

The pressure is working to get these institutions to pull out of the Russian fossil fuels funding Putin.

Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine is forcing companies to make big, bold choices. Exxon, one of the worst polluters in history, is saying it’s leaving $4bn worth of investments and projects to get out.

Frontline New York residents are taking over a section of Citi HQ in time for “Investor Day”, a day when hundreds of Citi’s super rich investors are getting together. They are raising objections to Citi’s massive investments into fossil fuel expansion and its huge exposure to the Russian economy, especially the energy sector

Citigroup is the second largest funder of the fossil fuel industry among all banks worldwide, the largest US backer of the coal industry, and it has the most invested in Russian fossil fuels of any US bank.

The people of Ukraine are being subjected to a brutal and illegal invasion perpetrated by the Russian military. And Putin is paying for it using all the profits he’s making from Russia’s biggest fossil fuel companies.

Climate-wrecking coal company Whitehaven Coal is the largest pure coal mining company in Australia. The company currently operates four giant mines and plans to invest around $2 billion developing three new coal mines and expansions.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that humans and nature are being pushed over the edge of what we can adapt to. It’s saying many of the impacts of global warming are now “irreversible”.

These are the 12 worst banks for fossil fuel investments:

For months HSBC has been telling us to hold 22 February in our diaries. This is the date it was planning to publish its targets for reducing the billions of dollars it is pouring into oil and gas companies, who are fuelling the climate crisis.

RBC is funding some seriously damaging fossil fuel projects. They’re trampling on Wet’suwet’en and Ojibwe land (among others). They’ve invested C$208 billion into fossil fuels since the Paris Climate Agreement was signed.

It’s hypocrisy. Out in the open. For everyone to see.

HSBC and Standard Chartered are both in the Net Zero Banking Alliance – a group of banks committed to reducing their fossil fuel investments.

Citibank, the global fossil fuel industry’s second biggest funder, is responding to pressure from thousands of us and making moves on climate. It’s now ahead of other banks like JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs on climate.

Goldman Sachs just released updated policies to try and tackle their investments in dirty fossil fuel projects. And they’re riddled with loopholes. They don’t outline anything to do with reducing greenhouse gas emissions and they’re massaging the numbers to make it look good (by using ‘intensity’ rather than ‘absolute’ targets).

The Royal Bank of Canada are pouring millions of dollars into Coastal Gas Link, a huge dirty pipeline set to be built right through the middle of sacred land belonging to the Wet’suwet’en Land Defenders.

This is huge. Some of the biggest banks and oil companies in the world are backing the Cambo oil field which is set to extract 170 million barrels of oil over 25 years, and 53.5 billion cubic feet of gas.

The UK government keep saying they want to lead the way on climate change. And yet here they are, handing over £14bn in tax-payer’s money in tax -breaks to massive oil and gas companies.

President Biden has announced Jerome Powell for a second term as Chair of the Federal Reserve. And that’s bad news for the climate. The Federal Reserve is the US’s central bank.

Coming out of COP26, several banks announced commitment to net-zero by 2050. They sound good, but unfortunately the announcements left enough wiggle room for many banks to continue “business as usual.” Years of people power leading to COP resulted in some of the world’s largest financial institutions finally acknowledging their outsize role in fueling climate change.

HSBC are part of the net zero banking alliance (NZBA) – a group of banks committing to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050. But they’re showing their true colours.