The global financial system is still fundamentally at odds with climate goals, as it continues to entrench high-carbon development pathways. In this report, we demonstrate that financial secrecy plays a key role in perpetuating this issue: it enables banks and fossil fuel companies to obscure the true scale of their fossil fuel financing – a practice we term “greenlaundering.” Unless steps are taken to dispel this smog of financial secrecy, progress won by the climate justice movement to divest from fossil fuels will continue to be jeopardised.
This report examines the fossil fuel financing provided by the 60 largest global banks, exploring how funds are strategically channelled through “secrecy jurisdictions.” These type of tax havens, specialized in financial secrecy, allow firms to obscure their activities and ownership structures from the public. The report also offers indicative evidence of how these structures benefit both fossil fuel companies and their financiers – at the expense of the climate and a liveable future for us all.
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