Bankrolling Climate Change NGOs present groundbreaking research on banks’ involvement in coal financing. The State of South Carolina Retirement System invests in many of the worst offenders.
We all know that climate change is happening.
But do we know who is financing the dirty energy investments that are heating up the globe?
Until now, little was known about banks’ role and responsibility for global warming. While most large commercial banks provide figures on their annual investments into renewable energy, they neither track nor publish their annual investments into fossil fuel projects. Many banks have made farreaching statements on climate, but are they putting their money where their mouth is?
This study presents new research on the portfolios of 93 of the world’s leading banks. It examines their lending for the coal industry, the prime source of global CO2 emissions. It provides the first comprehensive climate ranking for financial institutions and identifies the top “climate killers” in the banking world.
By naming and shaming these banks, we hope to set the stage for a race to the top, where banks compete with each other to clean up their portfolios and stop financing investments which are pushing our climate over the brink. We want banks to act and we want them to act now.
This study was produced by the environment organization urgewald from Germany, the social and environmental justice organizations GroundWork and Earthlife Africa from South Africa, and the international NGO network BankTrack.
URL of the original (large PDF) document here.
| Bank | in million Euro | in million Dollars | Ranking |
| JPMorgan Chase | € 16,540 | $22,142 | 1 |
| Citi | € 13,751 | $18,408 | 2 |
| Bank of America | € 12,590 | $16,854 | 3 |
| Morgan Stanley | € 12,117 | $16,221 | 4 |
| Barclays | € 11,514 | $15,414 | 5 |
| Deutsche Bank | € 11,477 | $15,364 | 6 |
| Royal Bank of Scotland | € 10,946 | $14,653 | 7 |
| BNP Paribas | € 10,694 | $14,316 | 8 |
| Credit Suisse | € 9,495 | $12,711 | 9 |
| UBS | € 8,217 | $11,000 | 10 |
| Goldman Sachs | € 6,770 | $9,063 | 11 |
| Bank of China | € 6,323 | $8,465 | 12 |
| Industrial and Commercial Bank of China | € 6,182 | $8,276 | 13 |
| Crédit Agricole / Calyon | € 5,637 | $7,546 | 14 |
| UniCredit / HVB | € 5,231 | $7,003 | 15 |
| China Construction Bank | € 5,110 | $6,841 | 16 |
| Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group | € 4,980 | $6,667 | 17 |
| Société Générale | € 4,742 | $6,348 | 18 |
| Wells Fargo | € 4,523 | $6,055 | 19 |
| HSBC | € 4,432 | $5,933 | 20 |
| Data provided by Profundo | |||
Note: Banks marked above are banks in which the state of South Carolina Retirement System is invested according to their 2011 annual report:
http://rsic.sc.gov/Publications/Reports/2011annualreport.pdf
December 11, 2011 Conversion Rates: http://finance.yahoo.com/currency-converter/#from=EUR;to=USD;amt=1.
