French banks on the front line of financing new fossil projects, according to NGOs

French banks were last year “the main European supporters of the expansion of fossil fuels” through the financing of big oil and gas companies, several NGOs said on Thursday.

In the “Banking on Climate Chaos” report, seven NGOs, including Reclaim Finance and Friends of the Earth, argue that the top nine oil and gas companies in the US and Europe, including TotalEnergies, BP and Eni, collectively received 11,900 million dollars in banks, mainly Crédit Agricole, BNP Paribas and Société Générale.

Poor students on a European scale, French banks continue to lag far behind their North American counterparts in financing fossil fuels, according to this report.

Crédit Agricole and BNP Paribas, like the Italian Unicredit, even increased their financing of this industry in 2022 compared to 2021, these NGOs assure, amounts in support.

The calculations refer to loans granted, but also to issues of shares and bonds of oil, gas and coal companies.

French banks have committed to being carbon neutral by 2050

In a statement sent to AFP, BNP Paribas refutes this finding “on the basis of a report in which we found numerous errors and methodological biases, in particular regarding the accounting of credits” attributed to it.

Beyond the figures, this annual study “shows the failure of the policies adopted by French financial players,” laments Lucie Pinson, director of the financial association Reclaim, to AFP.

However, one French bank is an exception: the Banque Postale. In 2021, it billed itself as “the world’s first bank” to commit to a full exit from the oil and gas sectors by 2030.

All French banks have committed to going carbon neutral by 2050.

“The fight against climate change is a priority for French banks, which are implementing ambitious policies to support a socially responsible, global and sustainable transition,” defends the French Banking Federation (FBF), which denounced a study last year with ” fantasies ” figures.

On February 23, three environmental NGOs sued BNP Paribas, Europe’s leading bank, for its “significant contribution” to global warming, due to its oil and gas clients.