Banks around the world have been busy laying out plans to reduce financing of the energy sectors most responsible for greenhouse gases. Earlier this month, Citi and Deutsche Bank both tightened their policies on the financing of fossil fuel production.
Yet at the same time, oil and gas projects that require backing from banks keep getting approved even as a new report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change shows that the world is on track to fall short of its most ambitious goal — drastically slowing global warming — and that more aggressive steps must be taken to avert a climate catastrophe. Last week the Biden administration approved ConocoPhillips’ plans for drilling in the Arctic — despite the opposition of environmentalists and a pressure campaign that led many banks, including Barclays and Goldman Sachs, to rule out the financing of drilling projects anywhere in the environmentally fragile region.
