World’s Largest Banks Pledged $869bn to Fossil Fuel Companies in 2024

45 banks boosted fossil fuel finance by more than a fifth in 2024, the hottest year on record, according to a new report.

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The world’s largest banks pledged billions in financing to companies conducting business in fossil fuels in 2024, the hottest year on record, according to a new report.

Led by JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup, the world’s 65 biggest banks committed a total of $869 billion in financing fossil fuel, and $429 billion in fossil fuel production and infrastructure expansion finance.

The data was put together by a coalition of groups co-ordinated by the Rainforest Action Network based on lending and underwriting data from over 2,800 companies.

American banks JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Citigroup pledged the largest sums – some $53.5 billion, $46 billion, and $44.7 billion, respectively. Japanese Mizuho Financial was fourth, pledging $40.3 billion, followed by American Wells Fargo with $39.3 billion.

Of the 65 banks covered in the report, 45 ramped up coal, oil and gas finance by $162 billion and 48 increased fossil fuel expansion finance by $84.4 billion between 2023 and 2024. Since the Paris Agreement came into effect in 2016, these banks collectively committed $6.7 trillion in fossil fuel financing.

Backtracking

Dozens of banks have watered down or altogether ditched their emission reduction commitments in recent months amid a changing political landscape and an increasingly fossil fuel-oriented agenda dictated by the Trump administration.

The six biggest banks in the world’s largest economy – Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Citi Bank, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan – recently quit the Net-Zero Banking Alliance. Canada’s six biggest banks followed suit shortly after.

The UN-sponsored initiative was set up in 2021 by former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney to encourage financial institutions to limit the environmental footprint of their operations and push toward achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

All banks insisted their decision would not impact their decarbonization pledges, with RBC Chief Executive Officer Dave McKay reassuring that pulling out of the alliance “doesn’t lead to a non-commitment to net zero or climate change.”

However, analysts say the moves send a clear signal to the market that climate change has become even less of a priority for Wall Street.

Incompatible With 1.5C

The burning of coal, natural gas, and oil for electricity and heat is the single-largest source of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These are the primary drivers of global warming as they trap heat in the atmosphere and raising Earth’s surface temperature.

In 2024, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), a by-product of fossil fuel burning reached a historic high accounting for about three-quarters of planet-warming emissions, reached a historic high. Just 36 fossil fuel companies, incuding Saudi Aramco, Coal India, ExxonMobil and Shell, are responsible for over half of the world’s planet-heating CO2 emissions.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has urged countries to halt new gas and oil field projects, arguing that this is the only way to keep the 1.5C-compatible net-zero emissions scenario alive.

But based on current emission reduction pledges, the world is on track for between 2.6C and 3.1C of heating, according to the UN.

Featured image: Rainforest Action Network/Flickr.