Over $700 billion in loans and underwriting flowed into companies conducting business in fossil fuels last year, funneled by 60 of the world’s largest private banks, according to a report released Monday by several environmental groups. The annual report, put together by the Sierra Club and the Rainforest Action Network among others, shows a slight decline in banks’ financing for oil, gas and coal since 2021, but researchers say it is not dropping quickly enough.
For one, the authors indiscriminately counted sustainability-linked bonds — a type of green financing issued by banks to encourage sustainable business — as fossil-fuel-related if the company that received the bonds works in the fossil fuel industry. Bose also expressed concerns about the report’s categorization of refinanced loans as repeated loans, which he said could be misleading because it ignored the loan terms.