Responding to Barclays’ newly announced oil and gas policy, ActionAid International’s Global Lead on Climate Justice, Teresa Anderson, said:
“In their continued financing of fossil fuels, banks like Barclays are the unsung villains of the climate catastrophe.
Barclay’s new policy is an improvement – but that was from an extremely low starting point. However, this policy tweak needs to be the first step on a much longer journey.
While there are now some limitations on specific projects, their policy would still channel financing to fossil fuel corporations and drive devastating fossil expansion. By itself, this policy does not yet make a dent in the harm suffered by the women, girls, and frontline communities in the Global South who bear the disproportionate effects of pollution, land grabs, and climate disasters.
With the news this week revealing that 2023 was the first time that the world has exceeded 1.5°C of warming over a 12-month period, climate action needs to be urgent, not incremental. Barclays needs to go much further, and much faster.”
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About ActionAid
ActionAid is a global federation working with more than 41 million people living in more than 71 of the world’s poorest countries. We want to see a just, fair, and sustainable world, in which everybody enjoys the right to a life of dignity, and freedom from poverty and oppression. We work to achieve social justice and gender equality and to eradicate poverty.
Notes to editor
ActionAid’s 2023 report “How the Finance Flows: the Banks Financing the Climate Crisis” found that Barclays provided US$29.6 billion in fossil fuel financing to the Global South between 2016 and 2022, making it the sixth largest European financier and the 30th largest overall. In global terms, the Banking on Climate Chaos report found that Barclays is the largest European fossil fuel financier and the seventh largest overall, providing US$190.6 billion in financing to fossil fuel companies between 2016 and 2022.
The report also found that Barclays is the largest funder of TotalEnergies in the Global South, providing US$2.1 billion since 2016. The French oil and gas giant is behind several controversial projects, including the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). It is also leading the development of Mozambique LNG, which has displaced hundreds of families without adequate compensation.
On the agribusiness side, Barclays is the largest international financier (US$900 million since 2016) of JBS, a Brazilian company that is the world’s biggest meatpacking company, and a key supplier to fast-food companies such as McDonald’s and Burger King, as well as retail giants such as Carrefour, Asda and Walmart. JBS is a huge emitter of greenhouse gas emissions, while various investigations have documented the company’s links to illegal deforestation, land grabbing, slave labor, and money laundering in Brazil.