"After the Paris climate agreement in late 2015, J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon spoke publicly in support of the agreement, which calls for finance flows to be “consistent with a pathway toward low greenhouse gas emissions.” But despite his rhetoric, between 2016 and 2018 his bank ramped up funding for fossil fuels, pouring $196 billion into financing coal, Arctic oil and gas, fracking, tar sands, and other fossil fuel projects. If you bank at Chase, your money might have helped fund drilling in the Amazon rainforest.
In total, according to a new report from a group of environmental nonprofits, the 33 largest global banks collectively provided $1.9 trillion in financing for fossil fuels. Of that, $600 billion went to 100 companies that are aggressively expanding fossil fuel projects at a time when climate scientists say that the world needs to rapidly transition to renewable energy.
“That expansion figure is particularly worrying for us,” says Alison Kirsch, lead researcher for the climate and energy program at the Rainforest Action Network, one of the nonprofits behind the report. “Previous analysis has shown that the potential carbon emissions from fossil fuel reserves already in production would take us beyond two degrees of warming, let alone 1.5 degrees.”"
