Proactive Investors - Royal Bank of Canada (TSX:TSX:RY) (RBC) has overtaken JP Morgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) as the top financier of the fossil industry, an analysis by international environmental organizations has found.
The 14th annual Banking on Climate Chaos report is authored by Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, Indigenous Environmental Network, Oil Change International, Reclaim Finance, Sierra Club, and Urgewald who are critical of banks’ role in financing fossil fuel operations.
According to the report, Canadian banks are becoming the "banks of last resort" for fossil fuels, providing $862 billion to fossil fuel companies since the Paris Agreement was adopted seven years ago.
RBC funnelled $42.1 billion into fossil fuels in 2022, including $4.8 billion for tar sands and $7.4 billion into fracking, it said.
It noted RBC continues to bankroll expansion projects like the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline, which has drawn criticism around human rights violations and Indigenous sovereignty as the project has proceeded without the consent of Wet’suwet’en Hereditary leadership.
But overall, US banks dominate fossil fuel financing, accounting for 28% of all fossil fuel financing in 2022, the report found.
JPMorgan Chase is cited as “the world’s worst funder of climate chaos” since the Paris Agreement, with Citi, Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC), and Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) among the top five fossil financiers since 2016.
The 60 banks included in the report injected $150 billion into the top 100 companies expanding fossil fuels, including TC Energy (TSX:TRP), TotalEnergies, Venture Global, ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP), and Saudi Aramco (TADAWUL:2222), in 2022.
The top bankers for liquified natural gas (LNG) were Morgan Stanley (NYSE:NYSE:MS), JPMorgan Chase, Mizuho, ING, Citi, and SMBC Group, as overall finance for LNG increased nearly 50% from $15.2 billion in 2021 to $22.7 billion in 2022, per the report.
The authors also criticized global banks’ net zero pledges, which they said contain many loopholes that allow banks to continue financing fossil fuel clients