I walked into a chilly Vancouver conference room last Thursday where a huddle of climate finance analysts were pouring over spreadsheets with expressions that ranged from grim to outright frustration. The annual Banking on Climate Chaos report had just landed on their desks, and the numbers told a story that flew in the face of the climate commitments so many financial institutions had trumpeted just months earlier.
“They’re saying one thing and financing another,” said Alison Kirsch, research director at Rainforest Action Network, who had flown in to present the findings to a coalition of British Columbia environmental groups. “The disconnect between banks’ public climate commitments and their actual financing decisions has never been more stark.”
The numbers are indeed sobering. According to the 2024 Banking on Climate Chaos report, the world’s 60 largest banks channeled US$669 billion into fossil fuel companies last year—an 8% increase from 2023. This comes despite the historic agreement at COP28 where nearly 200 nations committed to “transitioning away from fossil fuels.”
When I asked Kirsch what surprised her most about this year’s findings, she didn’t hesitate: “It’s the acceleration of financing for expansion projects—new drilling, new pipelines, new export terminals. These are investments with 30 to 50-year lifespans that lock us into climate catastrophe.”
The report shows Canadian banks are particularly complicit in this trend. Royal Bank of Canada, TD, and Scotiabank all increased their fossil fuel financing compared to the previous year, with RBC maintaining its position as Canada’s top fossil fuel financier, providing over $42 billion to the sector in 2024 alone.
Walking back to my apartment along False Creek that evening, I couldn’t help but notice the jarring contrast between Vancouver’s climate-conscious reputation—with its bike lanes, energy-efficient buildings, and electric buses—and the reality that our financial institutions are bankrolling the very activities threatening our coastal city’s future.
The implications extend far beyond abstract climate concerns. The Canadian Institute for Climate Choices published research last month indicating that continuing on our current emissions trajectory would cost Canada’s economy approximately $100 billion annually by 2050 through infrastructure damage, healthcare costs, and productivity losses.
“It’s particularly troubling for Indigenous communities,” explained Kukpi7 Judy Wilson, Secretary-Treasurer of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, whom I interviewed after she reviewed the banking report. “Many of these fossil fuel projects are developed without free, prior, and informed consent on unceded territories, creating a double burden of climate impacts and violations of Indigenous rights.”
The financial justifications for continued fossil fuel investment are increasingly questionable. The International Energy Agency‘s World Energy Outlook, released in November, projects that global oil demand will peak before 2030, with renewable energy capturing the vast majority of new energy investment. Meanwhile, clean energy investments are outperforming fossil fuels in many markets.
“Banks are creating massive stranded asset risks,” explained Adam Scott, director of Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health. “These fossil fuel investments will become financial liabilities when climate policies tighten and clean energy alternatives continue getting cheaper.”
What makes this situation particularly frustrating is that most of these banks have made public net-zero commitments. JPMorgan Chase, the world’s largest fossil fuel financier with $61.4 billion provided in 2024, is also a founding member of the Net-Zero Banking Alliance—a UN-convened group whose members commit to aligning their lending portfolios with pathways to net-zero emissions by 2050.
The hypocrisy isn’t lost on younger Canadians. When I visited the University of British Columbia campus last month, I found students organizing a banking divestment campaign that has already convinced hundreds of their peers to switch to credit unions or digital banks with stronger climate policies.
“We’re targeting the reputation of these banks,” said Maya Chen, a fourth-year environmental science student. “They care about their image with young professionals and future customers. So we’re making it clear that continuing to finance fossil fuels will cost them an entire generation of clients.”
Some financial institutions are bucking the trend. Vancity, a Vancouver-based credit union, has restricted financing for fossil fuel companies and dedicated over $1 billion to climate solutions. Internationally, France’s La Banque Postale has the strongest policy, having committed to a complete exit from oil and gas by 2030.
The financial sector’s resistance to meaningful climate action doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Environment and Climate Change Canada data shows that oil and gas remains Canada’s largest and fastest-growing source of emissions. Despite this, the federal government continues providing substantial subsidies to fossil fuel producers through programs like the Investment Tax Credit for Carbon Capture and Storage.
“We need regulatory intervention,” said Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist with Greenpeace Canada. “Voluntary commitments clearly aren’t working. Canada’s Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions needs to mandate climate risk disclosure and impose capital requirements that reflect the true risks of fossil fuel investments.”
There are signs this regulatory pressure may be coming. The Bank of Canada‘s most recent Financial System Review highlighted climate change as a key vulnerability in our financial system. Meanwhile, the EU has implemented more stringent sustainable finance disclosure requirements, and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission recently finalized climate disclosure rules for publicly traded companies.
For everyday Canadians, the banking report offers an opportunity to examine our own financial relationships. Our mortgages, savings accounts, and investments are not neutral—they’re being deployed in ways that either accelerate or slow the climate crisis.
As I walked along Vancouver’s seawall the morning after reviewing the report, watching the tide rise against the shore, I thought about the coastal communities throughout British Columbia facing increased flooding from those same rising waters. The connection between the spreadsheets I’d reviewed the day before and the physical reality of climate change couldn’t be clearer.
The banks may be betting on a fossil-fueled future, but their customers—and ultimately our climate—will determine whether that bet pays off.
