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It’s not just activists who are taking aim at Barclays over its funding of massive fossil fuel companies destroying lives and wrecking the planet.

Today, celebrities including Emma Thompson, Vanessa Nakate, Mary Portas, and Lolly Adefope, as well as organisations like Greenpeace UK, are saying they have #ZeroLoveForBarclays.

The National Trust, a big customer of Barclays, has agreed to put pressure on the bank to reduce its fossil fuel funding, following unprecedented support by tens of thousands of National Trust members at their annual general meeting last week.

HSBC lends billions of dollars to fossil fuel companies, every year. And it’s creating a headache of their own making.

Last week, HSBC was caught out by the UK ads regulator for greenwashing, and forced to come clean about its cosy relationship with the world’s worst fossil fuel companies.

This is huge. HSBC is the first bank in the world to be found guilty of greenwashing by an advertising regulator. And it’s all over the headlines: FT, Bloomberg, WSJ, Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Daily Mail, BBC and more.

Citi is the second biggest funder of fossil fuels in the world. Citi lends billions of dollars to the fossil fuel industry destroying the planet. And it’s why Citi got caught out twice last week:

• Jane Fraser (Citi CEO) got a roasting from US Congress for continuing to bankroll Putin’s fossil fuel companies.

There’s no doubt, the National Trust cares for “nature, beauty and history” across the UK and Europe. But their work is being undone by their bank, Barclays.

Barclays is secretly piling BILLIONS of dollars into fossil fuel companies.

Big banks being exposed…again. A new report from ShareAction shows that HSBC comes at the top of the ranking for investments in oil and gas expansion.

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.

The pressure is working. A campaign led by ShareAction is forcing HSBC to phase out coal. It’s not perfect given the urgency of the crisis and there’s a way to go.

This is a huge victory. US Bank BNY Mellon are one of the biggest banks in the world, and they’re pouring billions into fossil fuels. Now, after years of pressure led by indigenous groups, BNY Mellon are pulling funding out of the giant Adani Carmichael coal mine in Australia.

New posters are appearing around Glasgow for COP26, calling out Santander’s continued financing of fossil fuels. Since the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015, Santander have poured $34 billion into fossil fuels – and they’re still going.

This is big. Pressure from all sides is forcing the Bank of England to rethink. They set the rules for how banks can operate in the UK, and now, they’re talking about putting extra charges on banks who are funding fossil fuels.

Incredible work from 350 Netherlands, Fossielvrij, Friends of the Earth International, FairFinance, the Dutch Fair Pension Guide and others! Giant Dutch pension fund ABP is pulling out 15 billion euros ($17.5 billion) of investments in fossil fuel producers by 2023.

NatWest is pointing to their green credentials in the run up to COP, but it’s writing loopholes into its policies allowing it to continue funding fossil fuels. NatWest is asking the fossil fuel companies it’s funding to “offset” their emissions, rather than actually cutting them back.

Lots of major banks are releasing their policies on financing oil and gas ahead of COP26. But none of their plans are enough to meet what is required to avoid further escalation of climate disaster.

After dismissing it, they just announced that they’ll join the Net Zero Banking Alliance. And they’re pledging to reach net-zero emissions (from its lending and investment portfolios) by 2050. 

Reaching net-zero by 2050 means no new investment in new coal mines, coal plants, or oil and gas fields. But Standard Chartered is piling cash into new coal plants and coal companies.

Here are some of the main arguments banks used and the arguments for why they don’t stack up.

1) “If we don’t fund coal, oil, gas someone else will just do it”

Banks should be focused on their own responsibility to reduce their financed emissions, not that of their competitors.

Dear José Viñals,

We’re writing regarding the anticipated update to Standard Chartered’s fossil fuel policy, as recently reported in the media. This letter is intended to set out our expectations for what that policy should entail in order for it to be regarded as credible and leading practice.

It has been a devastating year so far of wildfires, floods, and storms across the globe, not to mention the first ever recorded rainfall in the Arctic. July was the hottest month in human history. 

They put on an impressive display and demanded shareholders vote out Board Chair, Charles H. Noski, for his oversight in continuing to fuel the climate crisis. 

Wells Fargo has been the world’s third worst banker of fossil fuels since the adoption of the Paris Climate Agreement, with $223 billion in lending and underwriting between 2016 and 2020.

Just 6 weeks before the election there, the action is helping set the agenda to show politicians that people want action on climate change and the role of finance is not going to be ignored.

The IPCC report has just declared code red for humanity. And a UNICEF report declared over a billion children at extreme risk face a deadly combination of exposure to multiple climate and environmental shocks, UNICEF called the situation “unimaginably dire”.

Rise Up for Change represents a coalition of groups from the climate justice movement taking action from 30th July to 6th August. 

Switzerland has one of the largest financial sectors in the world, through which trillions of francs flow into the global economy every year.