For the past two years, more than a dozen major banks have been not only reneging on their climate commitments, they’ve been actively making the crisis worse.
In 2024 and 2025, during the leadup to President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, all six of the nation’s largest banks abandoned the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, a voluntary climate coalition, precipitating the Alliance’s complete shutdown in October. Since then, others including Royal Bank of Canada, Scotiabank, HSBC, NatWest, Santander, and JPMorgan Chase have either weakened or scrapped their decarbonization targets.
Now, new evidence shows banks are ramping up spending on fossil fuels. Beyond helping companies extract more oil and gas, they are bankrolling the industry’s pivot to plastics, fertilizers, and other petrochemical products.
Two reports released earlier this month illustrate the trend. An analysis from the Rainforest Action Network, or RAN, and other environmental group... Read more
