As major global banks Barclays, HSBC, and Citibank hold their Annual General Meetings (AGMs) over the next two weeks, communities on the frontlines of the climate crisis are calling for an end to the banks’ financing of trillions of dollars worth of fossil fuel and industrial agriculture projects.
Ahead of the AGMs, several NGOs recently held joint actions and demonstrations across 20 countries, mostly in climate-affected countries in the Global South, to demand that banks and governments “fix the finance” and end the cash flows that enable the biggest causes of the climate crisis to continue expanding.
The human cost of recklessly financing harmful projects is undeniable. Frontline communities are experiencing the devastating impacts of climate change, including extreme weather events and disruptions to livelihoods and food production.
Happy Itros Sanga, a young activist with ActionAid Tanzania’s Global Platform, said:
“Prolonged droughts and extreme floods have robbed many young people of a decent source of income. Ongoing heavy rainfalls in the coastal region where I live have displaced thousands. Floods in 12 wards of Rufiji district which are part of the Coastal region have caused road damage, destruction of markets, schools, and hospitals as well as displaced 127,000 people who have done nothing to cause these violent weather extremes.”
Shamim Zawadi, a young climate activist with ActionAid Tanzania’s Global Platform, said:
“The repercussions of the unchecked billions of dollars flowing from banks into fossil fuels and industrial agriculture manifest most acutely in Africa, a continent also trapped in debt. As Tanzania grapples with a staggering national debt of Tsh87.5 trillion ($34.3 billion), equivalent to 35% of its GDP as of December 2023, communities are currently battling flooding that has devastated their livelihoods – destroying homes and farmland. The time is now for banks to stop choosing to profit from climate chaos. Only then can we genuinely empower those most vulnerable to the climate crisis and pave the way for a planet that is truly fit for all its inhabitants.”
The upcoming AGMs are an opportunity for shareholders to leverage their power and push the banks to change their climate-harming practices.
Teresa Anderson, Global Lead on Climate Justice at ActionAid International, said :
“In financing the world’s most destructive industries, banks like Barclays, HSBC, and Citibank are fuelling the climate crisis. Through reporting on their profits and practices, AGMs hold a mirror up to the banks’ climate-wrecking policies and can force shareholders to recognize their own responsibility to shape our planet’s future. Ending the money flowing to fossil fuels and industrial agriculture is necessary if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change.”
ActionAid’s research last year revealed that banks are pumping vast resources into climate-wrecking industries. Fossil fuel extraction and industrial agriculture receive a staggering 20 times more money from banks than Africa, Asia, and Latin America receive as climate finance for solutions.
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Notes to the Editor
- Since the Paris Agreement was signed, Barclays has provided US$11bn for industrial agriculture activities in the Global South and US$29.6bn for fossil fuels in the Global South. Barclays is the largest European financier of fossil fuels worldwide.
- ActionAid’s research showed that Citibank is the largest US financier of fossil fuels, providing US$13.9 bn to industrial agriculture and US$90.6 bn to fossil fuels in the Global South.
- HSBC has provided US$17.2bn to industrial agriculture activities and US$63.5bn to fossil fuel activities in the Global South since the Paris Agreement. HSBC is the largest European financier of fossil fuels and industrial agriculture in the Global South.
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.