Jonathon Berman, jonathon.berman@sierraclub.org
Shawna Ambrose, shawna@ran.org
NEW YORK, NY — The 17th edition of the Banking on Climate Chaos (BOCC) report released today finds that the world’s 65 largest banks committed $906 billion to fossil fuel companies in 2025, an increase of 8% from the previous year. Since the Paris Agreement was signed a decade ago, these banks have channeled $8.7 trillion into oil, gas, and coal operations. The report is the world’s most comprehensive open-source dataset on fossil fuel financing by commercial banks.
The report finds that JPMorgan Chase remains the largest fossil fuel financier in the world, providing $58 billion to fossil fuel companies in 2025, up 12.6% from 2024. Bank of America ranks second at $47 billion, and Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) ranks third at $47 billion, a 21% increase in a single year. The “Dirty Dozen” — the twelve largest fossil fuel banks — now provide nearly 40% of all global bank fossil fuel financing across approximately 2,000 banks worldwide.
Financing for companies actively expanding fossil fuels surged 27% to $508 billion in 2025. Any such expansion financing is incompatible with limiting global warming to 1.5°C. The report also finds a sharp increase in bank financing for fossil infrastructure expansion, especially midstream oil and gas, LNG, methane gas, and gas power. The three largest individual recipients of bank financing globally were all midstream oil and gas companies, underscoring how banks continue to support pipelines, export terminals, gas-fired power, and other long-lived infrastructure that can lock in fossil fuel dependence for decades. Financing for coal mining and coal power expansion also continued to rise, despite the urgent need to phase out fossil fuel buildout.
U.S. banks’ share of all global bank fossil fuel financing increased to 32%, up from 28% in 2021, making U.S. banks the single largest source of fossil capital in the world. European banks show the clearest downward trend. BNP Paribas reduced fossil deals by 28%; UBS by 36%; La Caixa by 34%. Standard Chartered, however, increased its fossil fuel financing by 28%, Deutsche Bank by 20%, and HSBC by 16%.
The report also highlights the limited impacts of voluntary climate commitments and the need for stronger regulatory measures. Following the collapse of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), banks accelerated their policy rollbacks. Of the 15 North American banks in scope, 12 now have no meaningful fossil fuel commitments. JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs abandoned their coal and Arctic exclusions entirely, converting them into case-by-case due diligence standards.
Statements from co-author organizations on the latest findings:
Jessye Waxman, Sustainable Finance Campaign Advisor, Sierra Club: “Major banks are not passive observers of the climate crisis. They are financing the fossil fuel expansion that is making climate risk worse and pushing those costs onto households, communities, and the broader economy. That should alarm institutional investors and pension funds whose portfolios depend on stable insurance markets, functioning housing markets, reliable infrastructure, and a resilient economy. Investors cannot treat bank climate policies as a side issue — continued financing for fossil fuel expansion is a direct contribution to portfolio-wide risk, and banks should be held accountable for deepening the crisis.”
Niko Lusiani, Research Director, Rainforest Action Network: “A decade after Paris, just twelve banks now drive more than a third of the world's fossil fuel financing — proof that this is no longer a problem of markets, but of a small set of decision-makers making active choices. They are choosing to lock in an energy system that hands record profits to a few fossil firms while passing the costs onto the three of every four people on Earth who depend on imported fuel. The good news is that what a handful of banks built, governments and people worldwide have the power to change.”
Gerry Arances, Executive Director, Center for Energy, Ecology and Development: “The twin fossil energy crises of the 2020s have made one thing clear: fossil fuel dependence is not energy security — it is structural vulnerability. Every dollar that still flows to fossil fuel expansion is a death sentence for the most climate-vulnerable peoples.”
Diogo Silva, Campaign Lead, BankTrack: “Banks keep telling us they're committed to climate. Then they abandon their own policies the moment political pressure mounts. Voluntary pledges have had their chance. We need binding rules — not promises.”
Tom BK Goldtooth, Executive Director, Indigenous Environmental Network: “Before and after the Paris Accord, Indigenous Peoples have raised alarms that Mother Earth and Father Sky are trying to tell the world the need to move away from a destructive fossil fuel infrastructure and economy that is killing all humanity, and life on the planet. This 2026 report shows bank financing fossil fuel expansion jumped approximately 24% in a single year since 2024. Fossil fuel expansion is a policy of death that locks in decades of future toxic emissions, and continues to be used as a weapon of destruction and death, and being the leading cause of climate change. Indigenous Peoples whose lands and territories sit atop the world’s hydrocarbon basins continue to experience takings of land, human and ecological health impacts, and human rights abuses. Banks are choosing to ignore the rights of Indigenous Peoples. There are no guarantees for safeguarding those rights. We are demanding a Just Transition requiring banks to immediately end all financing for expansion and for governments to legally mandate the phase out of fossil fuels. Now!”
David Tong, Global Industry Campaign Manager, Oil Change International: “Every dollar of finance for oil and gas helps an industry of war profiteers squeeze out short-term profits, further trapping communities into paying higher fossil fuel energy bills, fueling war and conflict, and burning all our futures. Voluntary commitments aren’t working. No major oil and gas company is doing anything even close to what is needed to hold global heating to 1.5°C, and voluntary banking sector pledges like the Net Zero Banking Alliance aren’t cutting their pipeline of cash. Instead, banks have injected over staggering $900 billion into fossil fuel financing in 2025 alone. Governments must step in and take urgent action to hold financial institutions and fossil fuel companies accountable for their role in the climate crisis.”
Lucie Pinson, Director and Founder, Reclaim Finance: “The scale of finance still flowing to fossil fuels — especially fossil fuel expansion — shows how deeply major banks remain tied to a climate-wrecking business model. Yet while US and Japanese banks continue to pour billions into coal, oil and gas in pursuit of short-term profits, regardless of the consequences for the living world, some European banks have started adopting measures to restrict financing for new oil and gas upstream expansion. BNP Paribas and Crédit Agricole — both among the world’s ten largest banks and among those that have gone furthest in adopting restrictions on companies developing new oil and gas fields— have shown that such policies can translate into significant reductions in financing. This shows there is no inevitability here: sustained public pressure can force change. The challenge now is to maintain and amplify that pressure until ending fossil fuel finance becomes the norm.”
Philipp Noack, Finance Campaigner, Urgewald: “Our research reveals a widening gap between the banks that take the climate crisis seriously and those who act like it doesn't exist. Banks play a critical role in the transition towards a sustainable energy and economic system, and each one of them should step up to the plate.”
BACKGROUND:
The latest edition of Banking on Climate Chaos is authored by Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, CEED (the Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development), Indigenous Environmental Network, Oil Change International, Reclaim Finance, Sierra Club, and Urgewald.
The complete report, dataset, methodology FAQ, policy scores, and media assets are available at bankingonclimatechaos.org.
Sierra Club has co-authored the Banking on Climate Chaos report series since its first edition in 2010, when Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, and Sierra Club launched the original report card tracking bank financing for mountaintop removal coal mining. Learn more here about the history and impact of the report series.
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.