Major banks are putting increasing amounts of money into fossil fuel. 2025 saw nearly $1tn of investment in fossil fuel companies, even as energy instability is deepening the global cost-of-living crisis.
The 17th edition of the Banking on Climate Chaos (BOCC) report finds that the world’s 65 largest banks committed $906bn to fossil fuel companies in 2025. This was an increase of 8% from the previous year.
Since the Paris Agreement a decade ago, these banks have channelled $8.7tn into oil, gas, and coal operations. The report is the world’s most comprehensive open-source dataset on fossil fuel financing by commercial banks.
The report finds that JPMorgan Chase remains the #1 fossil fuel financier in the world. It provided $58bn to fossil fuel companies in 2025, up 12.6% from 2024.
Bank of America ranks second at $47bn, and Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) ranks third at $47bn, a 21% increase in a single year.
The “Dirty Dozen”, the twelve largest fossil fuel banks, now provide nearly 40% of all global bank fossil fuel financing across approximately 2,000 banks worldwide.
Banks financing fossil fuel expansion
Financing for companies actively expanding fossil fuels surged 27% to $508bn in 2025. Any such expansion financing is incompatible with limiting global warming to 1.5°C.
US banks’ share of all global bank fossil fuel financing increased to 32%, up from 28% in 2021, and represents the single largest source of fossil capital in the world.
European banks show the clearest downward trend. BNP Paribas reduced fossil deals by 28%; UBS by 36%; La Caixa by 34%. Standard Chartered however increased its fossil fuel financing by 28%, Deutsche Bank by 20% and HSBC by 16%.
The report also highlights the limited impacts of voluntary climate commitments and the need for stronger regulatory measures. Following the collapse of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA), banks accelerated their policy rollbacks.
Of the 15 North American banks in scope, 12 now have no meaningful fossil fuel commitments. JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs abandoned their coal and Arctic exclusions entirely, converting them into case-by-case due diligence standards.
The cost-of-living connection
The fossil energy crises of the 2020s, which are Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the 2026 US-Israeli war on Iran, show that fossil fuel dependence is a structural source of global instability.
Three-quarters of humanity lives in fossil-importing countries and bears the cost of every supply disruption. Following the Iran conflict and closure of the Strait of Hormuz, wholesale gas prices roughly doubled in the EU while emergency rationing spiralled throughout Southeast Asia.
Trends show that profits flow upward. 84% of US oil and gas excess profits from the Ukraine crisis went to the wealthiest 10% of individuals while everyone else paid the price. This pattern looks to be repeating itself in 2026.
Featured image via Getty Images
By The Canary
