Annual Banking on Climate Chaos reports $429 billion of 2024 dollars are to fossil fuel expanding companies; totaling $1.6 trillion to these companies since 2021

June 17, 2025, New York, NY — Released today, the 16th annual Banking on Climate Chaos (BOCC) covers the world’s top 65 banks’ lending and underwriting to over 2,700 fossil fuel companies. Backgrounder of the report’s key findings can be found here. While the world’s top scientists from the International Energy Agency (IEA) repeatedly state that there is no need for a single new oil field, tanker, pipeline, or any fossil fuel expansion whatsoever, banks ignore climate risk and increase finance for dirty energy companies expanding their sector. This is amidst a rapid retreat from climate commitments many of these banks made at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021.

Overall trends:

Banks increased fossil fuel financing by $162.5 billion from 2023 to 2024 This is a new trend, since overall fossil fuel finance had been decreasing since 2021

Banks financed fossil fuels by $7.9 trillion dollars since the Paris Agreement Loans were the top form of financing last year, with an increase to $467 billion from $422 billion from 2023 Bonds saw the largest increase to $401 billion from $284 billion in 2023 Acquisition financing also rose to $82.9 billion from $63.7 billion in 2023

On companies who are expanding fossil fuels receiving funds:

Since 2021, banks have financed these companies with $1.6 trillion dollars

In 2024, they financed the companies with $429 billion alone This a rise of $84.8 billion from last year for these companies

JP Morgan Chase is the largest fossil fuel financier in the world, committing $53.5 billion to fossil fuel companies in 2024. 4 banks increased their fossil fuel financing by more than $10 billion. The top 4 banks with the largest absolute increase are JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Barclays.

U.S. banks committed $289 billion in fossil fuel financing in 2024, one third of the global financing for that year in the scope of the report. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo, the top four U.S. banks, alone represent 21% of total global fossil fuel financing in the scope of this report.

Japanese companies Mizuho, MUFG, and SMBC contributed 12% of this report’s overall financing for that year. Nearly half of that financing went to companies headquartered in the United States.

In Europe, the UK bank Barclays is the largest fossil fuel financier in 2024 with $35.4 billion. Spain’s Santander, France’s BNP Paribas, Germany’s Deutsche Bank, and the UK’s HSBC each contributed between $14 and $17.3 billion to the industry in 2024.

Banking on Climate Chaos is authored by Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, the Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development, Indigenous Environmental Network, Oil Change International, Reclaim Finance, Sierra Club, and Urgewald. It has been endorsed by 480 organizations in 69 countries.

BOCC quotes from authoring organizations, frontline communities, and politicians:

Allison Fajans-Turner, Policy Lead at Rainforest Action Network: (co-author)

“Distract, delay, deflect, and finally defect. If needed, rinse and repeat. Banks have used this playbook to keep themselves and the fossil fuel industry flush with cash, while loading the financial system with risk and running out the clock on keeping global temperatures from rising above 1.5˚C. The power of this report is that it cuts through these tactics and follows the money. Even in the face of worsening disasters and increasingly dire warnings of scientists and policy experts, banks actually increased their financing to fossil fuels between 2023 and 2024 and still poured billions into expanded fossil infrastructure. Only rapid and robust binding government regulation and oversight can make banks change course. Without binding regulation, banking on climate chaos will remain banks’ dominant investment strategy, tanking our economy and our planet.”

Gerry Arances, Executive Director at Center for Energy, Ecology & Development (CEED): (co-author)

“Over the last few months, communities across Southeast Asia suffered dangerously high temperatures. Every cruel dollar that still goes to fossil fuels is a death sentence to our climate-vulnerable peoples. SEA does not need the massive gas expansion threatening to bind it to a fossil future and climate chaos. We have more than enough potential for renewables to fully break away from coal and all other fossil fuels in a transition that would also help us build more resilience. Any money still going to fossil fuels is an obstacle to that transition, and it’s historically polluting nations that are largely driving fossil finance. The Japanese government, for instance, is the biggest financier of the fossil gas industry in SEA through its wholly-owned Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). This has to stop now.”

Diogo Silva, Campaign Lead Banks and Climate, BankTrack: (co-author)

“I dream of a time when we don’t have to produce this report any more, as we would finally be protecting present and future generations from catastrophic living conditions. Instead, at the same time that fossil pollution is spreading death, months of rain are pouring down in hours, and other once extreme weather events become ever more “normal”, banks are banking even more on climate chaos! Millions of lives are at stake and the data is clear on which direction banks are bringing us. It’s about time to make fossil banking history.”

Tom BK Goldtooth (Diné/Dakota), Executive Director, Indigenous Environmental Network: (co-author)

“Once again, the Banking on Climate Chaos report makes clear what Indigenous Peoples, frontline, and fence line communities have long known: Wall Street investment banks and global financial institutions are complicit in the climate crisis. Despite their greenwashing and false promises, these banks continue to bankroll the expansion of the fossil fuel industry and the false solutions that deepen climate injustice, land grabbing, and human rights abuse. From carbon markets to carbon capture to geoengineering techno-fixes, these schemes are distractions from the real solutions rooted in Indigenous sovereignty, traditional Indigenous knowledge, land and oceans defense, and a just and energy transition away from extractive capitalism. Our lands and waters are not sacrifice zones, and our Peoples are not collateral damage. Indigenous Peoples across the northern territories of Turtle Island and the Global South are rising to protect Mother Earth—not for profit, but for life. The time for climate justice is now, and that means ending fossil fuel investment at its source and holding banks and financial institutions accountable.”

David Tong, Global Industry Campaign Manager at Oil Change International: (co-author)

“In 2025, banks have no excuse to keep financing fossil fuel companies. No major oil and gas companies we analyze plan to do anything even close to what is needed to hold global warming to 1.5°C. By injecting a staggering $869 billion into fossil fuel financing in 2024 alone, the world’s largest banks fund the climate chaos that fossil fuel companies wreak on people and communities worldwide. Governments must step in and take urgent action to hold financial institutions accountable for their role in the climate crisis.”

Lucie Pinson, Director and Founder at Reclaim Finance: (co-author)

“This year, banks have shown their true colours — many have walked away from climate commitments and doubled down on financing fossil fuel expansion, even as global temperatures break records. A few European banks may have inched forward, but for most, the lure of dirty money has proven too strong. We need to face facts: the only way banks will contribute to addressing the climate crisis and its devastating human toll is if they are made to. All stakeholders must act now — starting with the supervisory authorities whose mandate is to protect the financial system from the growing risks of climate change.”

Jessye Waxman, Campaign Advisor for the Sierra Club’s Sustainable Finance campaign, Senior Strategist for the Sierra Club’s Fossil-Free Finance campaign: (co-author)

“The retreat by U.S. banks from robust climate commitments is unacceptable, deeply irresponsible, and a clear capitulation to political pressure. Banks must shift away from risky financing and commit to reducing emissions via the companies they finance, with a genuine focus on helping to decarbonize the economy and support the urgent and necessary clean energy transition. For example, it’s indefensible that US banks reject direct project finance as too risky, only to support the same projects indirectly through corporate lending—these loopholes must be closed.”

Katrin Ganswindt, Head of Finance Research at Urgewald: (co-author)

“In the year where floods and heatwaves overwhelmed vast areas around the globe, the world’s biggest banks increased financing for fossil fuel expanding companies by over $80 billion in 2024. Fossil fuel companies and their bankers put their short-term profit over our long-term habitat on Earth. In the face of the unfolding climate crisis, life as we know is in serious peril. The short-sighted business models that endanger it should lose their license to operate.”

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Quotes from frontline projects highlighted in the report:

“In Mozambique, the fossil gas industry has already resulted in debt and worsened socio-economic conditions for people. It can be expected that gas activities – including deep sea drilling and dredging, LNG processing, and increased marine traffic – will cause severe harm to land and ocean biodiversity and ecosystems, and the people who depend on natural resources for their survival. Banks involved in the project should distance themselves from this bloody conflict and withdraw their financing.” Anabela Lemos, Justiça Ambiental!

“The JSW Utkal project has been causing harm to the local communities and severe human rights violations by JSW and the State for two decades and it is shameful and outrageous that banks are still considering financing it at the expense of the health, the livelihood, and the homes of thousands of people. Banks must rule out finance for this project so that JSW will be forced to shelve it and these communities will finally be able to peacefully live on the lands they worked and inhabited for generations.” said Prasant Paikray, Spokesperson for the Anti-Jindal & Anti-POSCO Movement.