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‘Greenwashing’ banks raised 1 trillion dollars for fossil fuel giants

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Original article by Josephine Moulds republished from TBIJ under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

NatWest among several banks in ‘net zero’ alliance continuing to support the fossil fuel industry

At a glance

  • Banks with net zero pledges helped raise $1 trillion for companies expanding fossil fuels
  • Among them is NatWest, which may have broken climate pledge by funding BP
  • BP is developing a ‘carbon bomb’ in Azerbaijan, host of COP climate talks

Less than a hundred miles from where world leaders are discussing how to meet their climate pledges, BP is drilling for gas.

The Shafag-Asiman project, a sprawling gas field off the Azerbaijani coast, could inject more than 1 billion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere. That is more than the UK would emit over three years, striking a major blow to efforts to slow down global warming.

BP has said it intends to invest heavily in new oil and gas fields in the coming years. But it would be unable to pursue these dirty projects without billions in support from big banks. NatWest, for one, helped BP raise almost $500m last year in an apparent breach of its climate commitments.

Banks will be in focus at Cop29, currently underway in Baku, Azerbaijan, as world leaders discuss how to raise trillions of dollars for countries suffering the effects of climate change.

Although talks are unlikely to address their continued support for dirty energy, more than 140 banks worldwide have pledged to cut emissions associated with their lending and investments to almost zero by 2050.

In May 2021, the IEA, the global body coordinating countries’ energy policies, sounded the alarm. Any new oil and gas developments would make it inevitable that temperatures would rise by more than 1.5 degrees. In other words, they would devastate the planet.

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Meanwhile, at BP’s Shafag-Asiman field, engineers were celebrating after finding fossil gas several thousand metres under the seabed – a new discovery that could significantly increase its output from the region. And the bankers were preparing to raise billions more for BP.

That’s not all. Since May 2021, global banks that have committed to net zero have poured almost $1 trillion into companies pursuing expansion of oil and gas projects that would push the world beyond its survivable limits. Taken together these projects would produce almost seven times the annual emissions of the US.

“It’s indefensible,” said John Lang, founder of the Net Zero Tracker, which evaluates big companies’ green plans. “There’s no way we can meet the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement if we continue financing the exploration of oil and gas.”

He said banks with net zero commitments covering direct and indirect emissions could not fund oil and gas expansion. “It’s greenwashing, plain and simple.”

NatWest said it could not comment on specific customers. It said it had conducted a review into its relationships with a number of oil and gas companies “to ensure they had a credible transition plan aligned with the 2015 Paris Agreement”. It refuted the suggestion it had not met its public commitments.

BP said it is aiming to be a net zero company by 2050 or sooner and believes its strategy is consistent with the goals of the Paris Agreement.

‘Net zero’

It was at Cop26 three years ago that a number of major banks first pledged that by 2050 they would cut almost all the emissions from their lending and investments to zero and invest in financial products to offset the remaining emissions – which has come to be known as “net zero”. NatWest, for instance, promised to stop funding companies that do not have a credible plan to shift their business away from fossil fuels. Its support for BP suggests it may have broken that promise.

BP reported record profits in February last year and promptly announced it would scale back its climate commitments and increase investments in oil and gas. It then enlisted the help of NatWest and a host of other ‘net zero’ banks to raise a total of $5.3bn in 2023 – and went on to invest $4.8bn in its oil and gas operations in the first half of this year.

In April, BP announced the first oil to be extracted from a new platform off the coast of Azerbaijan, which is expected to be operating until at least 2049, just a year before the world is supposed to have cut its dependence on fossil fuels.

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The world-leading Grantham Research Institute assessed how credible the largest oil and gas companies’ transition plans were. It said BP’s fell short by a significant margin.

Many of the world’s biggest banks trumpet their net zero pledges to bolster their green credentials. But Nigel Topping, a member of the UK’s Climate Change Committee, explains that even when banks commit to cutting emissions associated with their financing in line with net zero, “it doesn’t stop them from financing companies who are continuing to expand [oil and gas production]”.

More than 180 companies expanding fossil fuel production have raised money from ‘net zero’ banks since May 2021, according to an analysis of data from the environmental campaign group, Rainforest Action Network. Their expansion projects are spread across the globe, from ConocoPhillips in the Arctic circle to Petrobras near the mouth of the Amazon river, and Shell in the UK’s North Sea.

A TBIJ analysis of the Global Oil and Gas Exit list, compiled by environmental campaign group Urgewald, shows these expansionary projects could produce almost 90 billion barrels of oil equivalent, which scientists say should stay in the ground. Around half of that is oil and half is gas, according to Urgewald, and calculations suggest it could generate more than 34 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions when burned.

Topping said: “The fundamental problem is that the transition is not driven by regulation … The only people who can make companies change are regulators, and the regulators are letting us down.”

Lead image: Offshore oil rigs at Baku Bay, near Baku, Azerbaijan. Anatoliy Zhdanov / Sipa US / Alamy Stock Photo

Reporter: Josephine Moulds
Environment editor: Rob Soutar
Deputy editors: Katie Mark & Chrissie Giles
Editor: Franz Wild
Production editor: Alex Hess
Fact checker: Somesh Jha

TBIJ has a number of funders, a full list of which can be found here. None of our funders have any influence over editorial decisions or output.

Original article by Josephine Moulds republished from TBIJ under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Continue Reading‘Greenwashing’ banks raised 1 trillion dollars for fossil fuel giants

New Study Identifies United States as ‘Planet-Wrecker-in-Chief’

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Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Planned fossil fuel expansion in the U.S. accounts for more than a third of new oil and gas extraction projects set to begin through 2050, according to Oil Change International.

Canadian wildfire 2023
Canadian wildfire 2023

A new report released Tuesday identifies the United States as “planet-wrecker-in-chief,” pointing to the nation’s plans for a massive expansion of oil and gas production over the next two and a half decades even as it postures as a climate leader on the world stage.

According to Oil Change International’s (OCI) research, planned oil and gas expansion in the U.S.—the largest historical contributor to planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions—accounts for more than a third of prospective global oil and gas expansion through 2050. Much of the U.S. expansion is tied to fracking, the report observes.

The U.S. is one of just 20 countries that are projected to be responsible for nearly 90% of the carbon dioxide pollution from new oil and gas extraction projects between 2023 and 2050.

If those 20 countries follow through with their fossil fuel expansion plans, OCI noted, the projects will emit an estimated 173 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of the lifetime emissions of more than 1,000 new coal plants.

“If that amount of CO2 is emitted into the atmosphere, then we’re in serious trouble,” Romain Ioualalen, global policy lead for OCI and a co-author of the new report, said during a press conference on Tuesday.

Such emissions, Ioualalen warned, would blow through the world’s dwindling carbon budget and make it “mathematically impossible” to limit global warming to 1.5°FC by the end of the century.

“The planet-wreckers report presents unmistakable evidence of the peril of fossil fuel expansion while reckoning with the world’s historic polluters, namely the United States.”

Five rich countries—the U.S., Canada, Australia, Norway, and the United Kingdom—account for more than half of all planned oil and gas expansion globally, even though they are far less reliant on fossil fuel revenues than other nations and have the resources for a renewable energy transition, OCI said.

The new report takes the Biden administration to task for “pledging climate leadership” while simultaneously facilitating “the continued expansion of fossil fuel production in the United States.”

“In 2023 alone, the administration greenlit the Alaska Willow Project; approved multiple LNG export facilities in Alaska and along the Gulf Coast, held a massive oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico, fast-tracked the Mountain Valley Pipeline, and oversaw the weakening of bedrock environmental laws, making it easier for fossil fuel infrastructure to move forward,” the report notes.

The new research was released just over a week before United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres’ Climate Ambition Summit, which will be preceded by more than 400 mobilizations worldwide aimed at pressuring world leaders to urgently phase out fossil fuels.

“The planet-wreckers report presents unmistakable evidence of the peril of fossil fuel expansion while reckoning with the world’s historic polluters, namely the United States, and how we must hold them accountable,” Helen Mancini, a 16-year-old Fridays for Future activist from New York City, said in a statement Tuesday.

“The activism youth are doing is not radical,” Mancini added, “it’s a demand for survival that the planet-wreckers must heed.”

Original article by JAKE JOHNSON republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue ReadingNew Study Identifies United States as ‘Planet-Wrecker-in-Chief’

The game changers on climate

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The game changers on climate

Earlier this month leading climate scientists issued their landmark report on climate solutions, directly to world governments, saying it’s “now or never” if we are to meet the Paris Agreement 1.5°C warming limit.

And the response?

Well, not what we need. Since the release, governments have announced or approved new oil and gas projects, despite the IPCC science saying we already have too many!

Climate scientists have had enough

A growing number of scientists have had enough, feeling obliged to step out of their labs and onto the streets to demand greater action. Following the release of the IPCC report, about 1000 scientists and academics in 25 countries took part in demonstrations, urging governments to act on the science. In the UK, a group of scientists glued scientific papers – and their own hands – to the windows of the government department responsible for energy, protesting the government plans for licensing of new oil and gas fields.

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Continue ReadingThe game changers on climate