Report finds major banks ramped up fossil fuel financing to $115 billion in 2017

(BankTrack, Amsterdam, 28 March 2018) A report released today by Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, Indigenous Environmental Network, Oil Change International, Sierra Club, and Honor The Earth, endorsed by over 50 organisations around the world, reveals that in spite of the urgent climate crisis, 2017 was a year of backsliding by private banks. Despite 2017 being the costliest year on record for weather disasters, the new report reveals that banks increased extreme fossil fuel financing last year [US$115 billion], led by a more than doubling in lending to tar sands companies and pipelines.The report provides invaluable data on specific banks and sectoral investments. In our November 2017 What's New, ECA Watch noted that export credit agencies fund almost $40 billion worth of fossil fuel projects each year. (Some of that overlapping as guarantees for private banks.) That is a whopping 12 times more than what they spend on clean energy projects.