Sign the Global Call: Banks, Stop Financing Fossil Fuels

The world is facing an acute climate crisis. With global temperatures rising, ever more droughts, floods, storms and fires are bringing destruction and havoc to communities and countries everywhere. 

To stop the world descending into full climate chaos, the continued burning of fossil fuels must be brought to an end as soon as possible. Even burning all coal, oil, and gas reserves already in production will push global temperature rise far beyond 1.5°C and likely beyond 2°C, the stated goal of the Paris Climate Agreement. This leaves no space for further exploration or extraction, yet many fossil fuel companies plan to vastly expand their operations, posing a true existential threat to people and planet.

For too long, banks have continued to support the fossil fuel industry. In the 5 years since the Paris Agreement, the world’s 60 biggest banks alone have already provided a staggering USD 4.6 trillion to the fossil fuel sector. For the sake of our very survival, this must stop. 

We, organisations from all over the world, call on all banks to acknowledge that their continued support for the fossil fuel industry is incompatible with saving the planet from climate breakdown, and to urgently take the following steps to end this support:

1. Immediately end all financing for fossil fuel expansion projects and for all companies expanding fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure, along the whole fossil fuel value chain.
2. Publish plans to phase out all ongoing financing for fossil fuel projects and companies, on a timeline aligned with limiting global warming to 1.5°C, starting with coal mining and coal power, as well as projects and companies active in tar sands oil, Arctic oil and gas, offshore oil and gas, fracked oil and gas, and LNG.
3. Require all existing clients to publish phase out plans for their fossil fuel activities on a 1.5°C-aligned timeline.
4. Commit to zero out the climate impact of all financing before 2050, and to halve this impact by 2030 at the latest, without relying on discredited offset schemes;
5. Immediately end all financing for fossil fuel projects and companies that abuse human rights, including Indigenous rights, and
6. Publicly and comprehensively report on all the previous steps.

Our organisations pledge to do all we can to end bank finance for the fossil fuel sector, to prevent a climate breakdown and ensure the banking sector promotes a rapid and just energy transition.