The first twenty-five European banks have funded gas and oil up to $ 400 billion in five years.
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The first twenty-five European banks have funded gas and oil companies up to $ 406 billion (about 357.8 billion euros) over the last five years, at a rate showing no sign of Slowdown, according to the calculations of the British association ShareAction, published on Monday, February 14. The British HSBC and Barclays are the first two (respectively $ 59 billion and $ 48 billion), followed by three French institutions: BNP Paribas (46 billion), Crédit Agricole ($ 35 billion) and Société Générale ($ 34 billion).
These numbers represent an underestimation. They are calculated by Profundo, a non-profit Dutch company, which compiles all the public data that exists on the financial relations between these twenty-five banks and the first fifty hydrocarbon operating companies: annual results, financial prospectuses, official websites, etc. By definition, part of the financing is not unveiled.
In contradiction
ShareAction, which campaign for the shareholders to push banks to change their practices, emphasizes the contradiction between these practices and the objective of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050, taken by many countries, of which France. In 2021, the International Energy Agency had submitted a scenario to contain a 1.5 degree global warming: to achieve this, it believed that no new gas and oil exploration project. had to be launched.
Twenty-four of the twenty-five banks studied by Shareaction are part of the banking alliance for net zero, a network, headed by the United Nations, of banks that undertake to align their practices and portfolios to reach the Carbon neutrality in 2050. Their practices seem in contradiction with their promises.
Banks have not been specifically engaged in renouncing hydrocarbon funding. If many have made important ads for coal, it is not yet the case for gas and oil. The ShareAction Association hopes that this will be the next fight.
It nevertheless stresses the exceptions of Commerzbank, Crédit Mutuel and the postal bank, which began to restrict the hydrocarbon financing. The latter in particular created a precedent in October by announcing that it would completely withdraw from the gas and oil by 2030. “The French lender is traditionally much less exposed to the fossil energy sector and had much less to lose” , however, relativises Shareaction.