On March 24th, Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and other NGOs released “Banking on Climate Chaos – Fossil Fuel Finance Report 2021,” a report analyzing fossil fuel financing from the world’s 60 largest commercial and investment banks.

Five years after the adoption of the Paris Agreement, many of the world’s major banks, including Japanese megabanks, are still investing in fossil fuels. Among them, Japanese megabanks MUFG and Mizuho both appear in the list of the worst 12 banks providing funding for fossil fuels over the last five years (from 2016 through 2020). They are in 6th and 8th place, respectively.

* Other Japanese banks are listed as; SMBC Group (18th), Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank (SUMI Trust) (59th). See the full report here.

Key Points

• The world’s 60 largest commercial and investment banks poured a total of $3.8 trillion into fossil fuels from 2016–2020. The total amount of corporate loans and underwriting to the fossil fuel in 2020 was approximately $750.7 billion. It dropped about 9% from last year ($823.7 billion) due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but is higher than the $709.2 billion in 2016, a year after the adoption of the Paris Agreement.
• In the 5 years since the Paris Agreement was adopted, the total finance to the 100 Key Fossil Fuel Expansion Companies reached to $1.5 trillion. The amount in 2020 was $368.5 billion, up 10% from $333.6 billion in the previous year.
• Japanese banks in the top 10 were MUFG in 6th (about 147.7 billion dollars) and Mizuho in 8th (about 123.5 billion dollars). Other than that, SMBC ranked 18th (about $ 86.3 billion), and SUMI Trust ranked 59th (about $ 600 million).

Links

Rainforest Action Network (RAN) Press Release (Japanese)
Banking on Climate Chaos: （Full Report）

Written/Published by：Rainforest Action Network (RAN) and others
Published : March 24, 2021