Banks are the still funding the European coal market. A new report by Europe Beyond Coal, of which ShareAction is a member, has found that European banks Unicredit, BNP Paribas, Barclays and Societe Generale have been keeping Europe’s top eight coal utilities afloat.

In 2020, European financial institutions have released nearly one new policy limiting financial ties to coal companies per week. However, a significant amount of financial support for coal-heavy companies continues unabated.

These top eight coal utilities; including RWE (Germany), PGE (US) and Fortum/Uniper (Belgium); are responsible for half of all EU coal-based CO2 emissions. Italian bank Unicredit alone has provided €2.8bn in loans and underwriting services to these companies, the new report, called Fool’s Gold finds.

Europe’s most coal-exposed investor is the Norwegian Government Pension Fund, which invested €1.5 billion in shares and bonds, closely followed by Crédit Agricole with €1.4 billion, Allianz with €1.1 billion, and Deutsche Bank with €1.0 billion. Internationally, BlackRock’s investments totalled €7.0 billion.

A recent survey of Europe’s largest 20 publicly-listed banks on climate change undertaken by ShareAction shows the vast majority of European banks’ strategies on climate change are not aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement. While 35 per cent of banks surveyed claimed that their strategies are aligned with the Paris climate goals, none of the banks surveyed was placed in the “best practice” category.

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