Union of Concerned Scientists Global Warming

The hypocrisy of the world’s biggest banks on climate change keeps mounting. Last month, the British-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) reported that London-based HSBC, one of the world’s top-10 biggest banks, has helped raise $47 billion for the fossil fuel industry since its 2022 announcement that it would not finance new gas and oil infrastructure.

Some of HSBC’s dealings were on behalf of Saudi Aramco, the world’s second-ranked company in Fortune’s Global 500 and often dubbed the world’s biggest polluter for being the largest corporate emitter of greenhouse gases. In response to the report, the bank told TBIJ that its investments remain “science-based,” under a presumption that “net zero-aligned scenarios require continued, though declining, financing of fossil fuel supplies to meet energy demand, security, and affordability during the transition.”

It was another corporate spit in the face of science. The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that all scenarios to meet the Paris Agreement’s targets for holding planetary temperatures under 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit from pre-industrial levels require “rapid and deep and, in most cases, immediate greenhouse gas emissions reductions in all sectors this decade.”

Many UN documents say emissions should be cut by 45 percent by 2030. Modeling by the Union of Concerned Scientists says it is possible to slash heat-trapping emissions by more than half by 2030, with “deep” and “direct” reductions.

It also requires a deep reduction in fossil fuel finance and an opening of the vaults for clean energy. The International Energy Agency said the world last year saw record growth in solar power, adoption of electric vehicles, and global clean energy investments that outstripped fossil investments last year by $1.74 trillion to $1 trillion. But it is not even close to enough. For the world to truly be on a path to net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the IEA says clean energy spending needs to soar to $4.5 trillion per year by the 2030s.

Fill ‘er up at the bank

It is hard to see that happening when banks like HSBC remain filling stations for the oil and gas industry. Nearly every major bank these days claims to have net zero financing and operations policies. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said about those policies, “We must have zero tolerance for net-zero greenwashing.”

So far, the pledges aren’t worth a plug nickel.

A November report by the United Nations and several other climate science groups found that government plans add up to increases in coal production through 2030 and in oil and gas production through 2050—a date by which we’re supposed to be at net zero. A report this past fall by the human rights group ActionAid, says that the world’s biggest banks have poured $3.2 trillion into oil and gas development in the Global South in the seven years since the Paris Agreement was signed. Many nations in the Global South, which tend to be lesser resourced countries than industrialized Europe and the United States, are at the most risk of tragic consequences from the heat, rising seas and extreme weather of runaway climate change.

Another report this past summer by the Sierra Club found that the four biggest banks in the United States–JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America, and the British-based Barclays–are the top five financial institutions propping up the coal power industry in the United States. All of that is on top of reports earlier in 2023 by consortiums of environmental groups.

One said the world’s 60 largest banks, led by JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo and Bank of America, have poured an overall $5.5 trillion into fossil fuel projects since the Paris agreement went into effect in 2016. Another said financial institutions in the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero have financed more than 200 of the world’s largest companies involved with the extraction, transport and production of coal, oil, and gas.

Banking on pseudoscience

The banks justify this by clinging to a stale “all of the above” energy strategy that too often leaves loopholes big enough to shove pipelines and coal trains through. In rationalizing their strategy, they often grasp for pseudoscience that is years behind the real science. Leading the way is the CEO of the world’s biggest financier of fossil fuels. In a 2022 House hearing, Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase said ending fossil fuel investments is the “road to hell.” He added that investing in oil and gas “is good for reducing CO2,” to get away from coal. 

Dimon obviously missed—or dismissed—the memo that the benefits of swapping out coal for natural gas evaporated years ago and that the methane from gas production now shares top billing with CO2 in frying the planet and harming human health. His counterparts, such as Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan, Citi’s Jane Fraser, and Wells Fargo’s Charles Scharf, all use the same type of excuses used by Fortune 500 companies and the Reagan administration in the 1980s to reject divestment from apartheid South Africa.

At the same 2022 House hearing in which Dimon said divestment was the road to Hades, Moynihan, Fraser and Scharf all claimed that financial engagement with oil, gas, and coal companies would nudge them to produce less oil, gas, and coal. Huh? While companies like ExxonMobil keep expanding?

The CEOs keep snubbing their noses at studies such as the 2022 report by the federal National Renewable Energy Laboratory saying there were multiple pathways for the United States to achieve 100 percent clean electricity by 2035. They also purposely ignore the IEA when it says “No new oil and natural gas fields are needed in the net zero pathway.” Similarly, a UCS analysis in November found at least two pathways to net zero, but said they cannot happen “if we simultaneously keep expanding fossil fuel infrastructure, production, exports, and use.”

Funding needless death

Worst of all, the banks’ continued support of fossil fuels is literally immoral as mounting studies tie fossil fuel burning to millions of deaths a year. The latest, from an international team of researchers in the British Medical Journal, found that 5.1 million people die prematurely from the ambient air pollution from the burning of fossil fuels. The study said that phasing out fossil fuels would be an “effective intervention.”

For now the banks actions are making this effective intervention impossible. That fact should raise public ire considering that the nations of the world agreed at the latest round of international climate talks to transition away from fossil fuels and the majority of people in the United States want action on climate change. In one of the most recent surveys, a December CNN poll found that 73 percent people think the United States should design its federal policies to cut greenhouse gas emissions by half by 2030—the  current target of the Biden administration. 

The big question now is whether international pressure and US public engagement can build enough momentum to put us on the path to fossil fuel phase out we urgently need. The banks have a huge role to play. They can either choose to be part of the solution or, to borrow from Jamie Dimon, they can continue to propel us down the road to hell.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) met in Istanbul, Türkiye, in January 2024 to try to agree on the core scientific products it will produce in its 7th assessment cycle (AR7). I was there representing the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) along with my colleague Dr. Delta Merner, who wrote about the main decisions taken at the meeting. My goal was to advocate for increased consideration of cultural heritage, including Indigenous and traditional knowledge, in IPCC’s work.

The Istanbul meeting saw a prolonged, and ultimately unresolved debate about whether the IPCC’s main reports could, or should, be produced in time to help inform the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) second global stocktake (GST2), to be completed in 2028, in which nations will again assess their collective progress towards achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement. 

The issue of timing and content for IPCC reports is complex and the discussions in Istanbul were driven not just by scientific practicality and policy-relevance, but also by differing political perspectives among developed countries, nations of the Global South (with varying degrees of economic development and climate vulnerability), and petrostates.

IPCC reports need more inclusion of Global South scientists

The Istanbul meeting also reviewed a report on lessons learned from the IPCC’s 6th assessment cycle (AR6), and established a Task Force to be co-chaired by the US and South Africa to consider the many issues raised. Representation and inclusion were core among these issues. In this and the subsequent discussions about the process for AR7, numerous developing countries identified the need to increase participation and information from the Global South in the IPCC process and reports. This included being more proactive in including women scientists and authors and reviewers from developing countries. IPCC authors in the past have been skewed towards men working in the physical sciences in Europe and North America.

Further, many delegates, especially from the Global South, agreed that the IPCC needs to find ways to use a wider evidence base that better utilizes non-English language source material, and addresses the limited availability of observational data from many parts of the developing world. Several delegates, including from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gambia, Iraq, Madagascar, Sri Lanka and Niger pointed out the gaps caused by lack of updated or detailed regional data for their countries.

Barriers to the inclusion of information from developing countries include the fact that high subscription costs for academic and research journals limit Global South authors’ access to publications, while fees that can run into thousands of dollars for publishing in scientific journals often preclude developing country researchers’ work from reaching the peer-reviewed literature. 

IPCC chair Jim Shea and secretary Abdalah Mokssit during the heat of negotiations. Adam Markham

Reporting on cultural heritage and climate change

At the Istanbul meeting, I was able to present the official scientific co-chairs’ report from the International Meeting on Culture, Heritage and Climate Change co-sponsored by the IPCC, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), that also dealt with issues of inclusion. The presentation was timely because the latest framework for the global goal on adaptation (GGA) which was agreed upon at COP28 included specific commitments on protecting cultural heritage to be undertaken by countries in 2030, so the information the IPCC can provide before then will be important. 

The cultural heritage and climate science meeting, which UCS’s Director of Climate Science, Brenda Ekwurzel participated in, was built around three core themes–the first being knowledge systems. This theme included an examination of the nature and scope of representation of culture and heritage in existing climate literature. It also addressed integration and inclusion of diverse knowledge systems, especially Indigenous and traditional knowledge, across areas of climate research and policy. The second theme was around climate impacts–reviewing loss, damage, and adaptation for tangible and intangible cultural heritage. This included understanding different approaches to cultural significance, adaptation prioritization, and diverse ways of dealing with loss and change.

The third theme addressed solutions, examining the roles of culture and heritage in transformative climate action and sustainable futures. This section included discussion of the capacity of historic buildings, cultural landscapes and traditional land use to store carbon, and contribute to resilience in the face of climate disasters and loss and damage. Results from the meeting were published in 2022 as the Global Research and Action Agenda on Culture, Heritage and Climate Change.

In my Istanbul presentation, I put forward several recommendations from the scientific co-chairs of the meeting to the IPCC, including that the panel should:

• Organize an Expert Meeting on culture, heritage and climate change during the AR7 cycle.
• Incorporate culture and heritage as a crosscutting topic across multiple products in the AR7, including the planned Special Report on Cities.
• Evaluate the potential for a dedicated chapter on culture and heritage including a focus on Indigenous and traditional knowledge, during the Working Group 2 scoping process.
• Enhance efforts to invite nominations for IPCC participation in scoping and expert meetings, and as authors and reviewers, of individuals with cultural heritage expertise, as well as Indigenous scientists and Indigenous and traditional knowledge holders.
• Establish a Task Force or Expert Meeting with the goal of developing new guidelines for accessing and incorporating Indigenous and local knowledge through the AR7 cycle and beyond.

Including Indigenous knowledge in IPCC work 

These recommendations, especially those championing greater inclusion of Indigenous Knowledge and Indigenous science were in line with much that was said by country delegates in Istanbul interested in improving and expanding IPCC’s approach to this issue. 

Although AR6 acknowledged that Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous science are needed to fight climate change, help address adaptation and prevent maladaptation, it’s clear AR7 needs to do more. Australia, Brazil, Burundi, Guatemala, Italy, Kenya, Libya and New Zealand all stressed this. Canada called for the establishment of a task group with Indigenous leadership to examine how Indigenous knowledge could be effectively included in the work of the IPCC and offered to host an IPCC Expert Meeting on the topic. 

Lisa Qiluqqi Koperqualuk of the Inuit Circumpolar Council addresses the IPCC. IISD/ENB | Anastasia Rodopoulou

Bolivia in particular championed Indigenous knowledge, several times calling for the comprehensive inclusion of Indigenous knowledge and full recognition of different epistemologies and ontologies, many of which make no separation between people and nature. 

Reinforcing that point Lisa Koperqualuk, president of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference, the first Indigenous Peoples Organization to be recognized as an observer to the IPCC made reference to sila, the all-pervasive, life-giving force that connects Inuit people to their environment. In her powerful interventions, Koperqualuk also said: 

“Indigenous people must be equitably and ethically engaged in all research and policy that impacts them, and for us, and other underrepresented communities, this implies being fully involved in process”. And noted that “Indigenous peoples should not only be viewed as a vulnerable group, but as an equal partner in this work, with an intimate knowledge of our lands, water and ice…”

At the end of the final day of negotiations in Istanbul which ran through the night and lasted more than 24 grueling hours, one of the agreements in the final decision document was to use diverse sources and knowledge systems, including Indigenous and traditional knowledge in the AR7 cycle. A small step, but an important one. And one we will work to help the IPCC build on.