Banking Climate Failure

Executive Summary

Market Forces’ latest analysis reveals that in 2023, Australia’s big four banks, ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, NAB, and Westpac continued to pour billions of dollars into the fossil fuel industry. In 2023 these banks loaned $3.6 billion to fossil fuels. The big four have now poured over $61 billion into fossil fuels since the Paris Agreement.

Worst of all, money is still flowing to companies that plan to build new and expanded coal, oil and gas projects, which are incompatible with limiting global warming to 1.5°C. Australia’s big four banks loaned $2.5 billion to companies with fossil fuel expansion plans in 2023.

There is some good news. 2023 was the first year since the Paris Agreement that none of the big four Australian banks participated in a deal explicitly for a new or expanded fossil fuel project. Between 2016 and 2022, the big four loaned $9.5 billion directly to new and expanded fossil fuel projects. But 2023 may have marked the beginning of the end of the big banks providing project finance to coal, oil and gas developments causing unacceptable harm to our climate.

However, as direct loans to fossil fuel projects dries up, general purpose corporate lending and bonds are increasingly being used as backdoor financing options for companies pursuing new coal, oil and gas developments.

The big four Australian banks arranged $2.2 billion for fossil fuels through the bond market in 2023. $1.4 billion of this was for companies with expansion plans.

All of the big four Australian banks have committed to the goals of limiting warming to 1.5°C and net-zero emissions by 2050. Yet despite the scientific consensus that new and expanded fossil fuels are incompatible with these goals, the banks continue to recklessly finance companies pursuing these projects, completely undermining their climate credentials in the process.