The main world banks have granted more than double funds to fossil fuels than to the energy presented as “sustainable” between 2021 and 2024, according to a study published on Tuesday, September 23 by several NGOs, including Relaim Finance.
Worldwide, the large bank establishments (HSBC, JP Morgan, Santander …) granted $ 1,368 billion in energy to energy as wind or solar, against more than double (3,285 billion dollars) with fossil fuels.
Otherwise, formulated, for a dollar dedicated to fossil fuel financing, only 42 cents are assigned to the energy transition. This proportion is far from being in line with the recommendations of the International Energy Agency (IAI), according to NGOs, or with the ambitions of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and limiting global warming.
The study retains the perimeter of “sustainable” energies that are calculated thus, a more restrictive term than the category of renewable energy according to Relaim Finance, because, for example, excluding bioenergy or certain hydroelectric projects. This can explain the differences with the data of the banks themselves, when they publish them.
French banks better located
French bank establishments are out of this in general better than their American, Canadian or Japanese counterparts. In detail, the postal bank and the Mutuel Credit are in this study, with good students, with insignificant support for fossil fuels and funds for alternative energy from seven to nine times more.
Behind BNP Paribas (14th) and Société Générale (22º), Credit Agricole and the BPCE Group (popular banks and savings boxes) occupy medium title spaces (respectively 26 and 29) in the world level. The financing of fossil fuels (loans and other associated credit instruments) even increase during the period for BPCE, according to the study, a unique case in France.
French banks “are aware of the importance” of the relationship between the financing of fossil fuels, on the one hand, and the transition of energy on the other, the French Banking Federation (FBF) reacted. “Its objective is to increase this relationship by increasingly support renewable energies and gradually disconnect from fossil fuels,” said the bank lobby.
Source: BFM TV
