The five biggest banks in the UK invested $368 billion in fossil fuels between 2016 and 2021 and distributed $141 billion to the 50 companies that increased oil and gas production the greatest during that time.
Actors Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, and Mark Rylance are among the well-known people Richard Curtis has enlisted in his effort to get them to cut back on their bad spending.
We hope that this strange and amazing alliance of campaigners and actors, companies and brands, famous people and climate change advocates lights a fire under the banks to prevent them from igniting the entire planet, Curtis told The Guardian.
In addition to writing and directing Love Actually, Curtis is best known for his work on the romantic comedies Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, and Bridge Jones’ Diary. But he has now shifted his focus to climate action with the Make My Money Matter initiative, which aims to green UK pension funds.
The campaign’s most recent effort is a letter to the CEOs of the country’s five largest banks, HSBC, Barclays, Santander, NatWest, and Lloyds, requesting that they cease subsidizing the development of fossil fuels.
Do you think we’ll agree to you funding a global warming catastrophe? Don’t put your money on it, the message advises.
The International Energy Agency‘s (IEA’s) assessment that new oil, gas, or coal projects are incompatible with keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels and averting the worst effects of the climate catastrophe is cited in the letter. These advancements require funding, which is why the letter makes the following three requests of banks:
- No more funding for new fossil fuel projects.
- Give clients an ultimatum for stopping fossil fuel expansion.
- Cut off clients that do not stop expanding fossil fuel developments.
Nearly 5,000 organizations and individuals have so far signed the letter, according to The Guardian, including Fry, Thompson, Rylance, Brian Eno, Chris Packham, a naturalist, Caroline Lucas, a member of the Green Party in parliament, Just Stop Oil, Greenpeace UK, Save the Children UK, Ecotricity, Ella’s Kitchen, and Triodos Bank.
The campaign makes use of data from reports from 2022.
Using Climate Chaos as a Strategy
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Expansion of the oil and gas industry: A losing wager for banks and their investors. The first discovered that after the Paris Agreement was adopted, the 60 biggest banks in the world had invested $4.6 trillion in fossil fuels. While Barclays was the major fossil fuel financier in Europe, the U.S. banks
JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America were the worst offenders globally, accounting for a quarter of all fossil fuel financing during the research period. According to the latter research, the top 50 fossil fuel-expanding corporations received about $16 billion from the five UK banks in 2021 alone.
The letter also comes in the wake of yet another investigation, published in January, which revealed that financial institutions and banks that had signed a net zero commitment continued to invest in fossil fuels, according to additional reporting by The Guardian.
The UN’s COP26 climate summit produced the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), whose members agreed to make investment choices consistent with the target of preventing global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees.
Reclaim Finance’s analysis revealed that members were still pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into the expansion of the coal, oil, and gas industries. On a list of the top 20 bankers for the largest fossil fuel-expanding firms, both Barclays and HSBC were listed.
The concerned banks informed The Guardian that they were moving forward in response to the letter. NatWest stated that it did not lend to fossil fuel companies that did not have a credible climate plan and that such loans accounted for less than one percent of the bank’s present lending.
Santander stated that it has established emissions reduction targets for 2030. In addition to praising its 2050 net zero promise, Barclays suggested that fossil fuel firms might contribute to the energy transition.
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According to a spokeswoman, several oil and gas corporations are actively involved in the shift and essential to it, dedicating considerable resources and experience to renewable energy, as The Guardian noted. By helping these clients migrate to a low-carbon economy,
facilitating the financing required to alter their business operations, and scaling up green technologies, we think we can have the biggest impact. We will gradually withdraw our assistance from carbon-intensive businesses if they are unable or unwilling to cut or eliminate their emissions.
As BBC News reported at the time, HSBC declared in December that it would no longer finance new oil and gas developments. Although not mentioned in the letter, Make My Money Matter at the time praised this.
According to Make My Money Matter CEO Tony Burdon, it’s another “nail in the coffin” for the development of fossil fuels and a huge signal to other UK banks that new oil and gas drilling is no longer an option.
The letter did make reference to a similar pledge made by Lloyds in October.
The letter signatories pledged that if Lloyds does not take climate action by following the three steps above, they would look for another bank. Lloyds has already made a start by ceasing direct funding to new oil, gas, and coal projects, but all five of you must make sure you do so.
