SOURCE: EcoWatch
DATE: March 20, 2019
SNIP: A report published Wednesday names the banks that have played the biggest recent role in funding fossil fuel projects, finding that since 2016, immediately following the Paris agreement’s adoption, 33 global banks have poured $1.9 trillion into financing climate-changing projects worldwide.
The top four banks that invested most heavily in fossil fuel projects are all based in the U.S., and include JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citi and Bank of America. Royal Bank of Canada, Barclays in Europe, Japan’s MUFG, TD Bank, Scotiabank and Mizuho make up the remainder of the top 10.
“One inescapable finding of this report is that JPMorgan Chase is very clearly the world’s worst banker of climate change,” the report, titled “Banking on Climate Change,” found. “The race was not even close: the $196 billion the bank poured into fossil fuels between 2016 and 2018 is nearly a third higher than the second-worst bank, Wells Fargo.”
All told, financial backing for fossil fuel projects has grown, not shrunk, each year since the Paris agreement, the report found. Banks provided $612 billion for fossil projects in 2016, $646 billion in 2017, and $654 billion in 2018.