Climate activism works – and HSBC proves it

2022 was a successful year for climate finance activists. They started the year with all of the UK’s “big five” banks still funding new fossil fuel projects, but ended the year with only one left funding both new oil and gas projects – Barclays.

December brought the biggest prize, with Europe’s biggest bank HSBC, announcing an end to funding for new oil and gas projects. This followed Lloyds in October and Natwest in February. Santander told us that they have banned new oil, but they still fund new gas projects. Some banks cite the EU’s controversial decision to label fossil-gas as “green” to justify fossil-gas investments!

I confess that when the Independent launched our Stop Fuelling the Climate Crisis Campaign in April 2021, supporting the climate finance movement, I did not dream that so much of the key demand for UK banks to stop funding new fossil fuels would be achieved by the end of 2022.

Ending new fossil fuel projects is the minimum first step for a transition to a renewable energy economy. We have more than enough existing oil and gas reserves to destroy our climate many times over.

Yet, since the Paris Climate Treaty was signed in 2016, the world’s top 50 banks have invested over $4 trillion in new fossil fuel projects. UK banks have invested $407 billion or 10 per cent of the global total. This means that UK activists’ major UK victory will also have a major impact globally.

Money Rebellion have targeted the “big five” UK banks funding fossil fuelled corporations, with hundreds of direct-action protests, almost from the day Extinction Rebellion (XR) was founded in 2018. And Just Stop Oil made the halting of new oil and gas projects their single key demand.

A high price has and is being paid by many ordinary people to achieve these important first-step victories. A humbling 2,000 Just Stop Oil climate protectors were arrested in 2022 and 138 imprisoned. Thirteen of these climate heroes remained jailed over the Christmas holidays.

Just Stop Oil spokesperson Sarah Lunnon told this column: “The HSBC and Lloyds announcements are the beginning of the end of the fossil fuel economy. This genocidal industry will end. It’s up to ordinary people to keep non-violently defending all we value.” In addition, seven female Money Rebellion climate protectors are to be sentenced in late January for breaking Barclay’s HQ windows, after being found “guilty” last month.

Gail Bradbrook, a co-founder of Extinction Rebellion and spokesperson for Money Rebellion said: “We welcome the symbolism of the announcement  from HSBC but know that they need to do much more. This is an emergency and this must not be a policy for HSBC to devise secretive workarounds for.” They said Money Rebellion would continue their successful direct actions against Barclays and other oil-funding banks.

A senior UK banking executive told me at a pre-Cop26 conference last year, that such direct actions place real internal pressure on bank boards to act faster on climate finance. Their direct actions will complement the announced temporary suspension of disruptive actions by XR’s parent body and the efforts by more mainstream groups like Share Action and Positive Money.

Whilst the headline announcements of a cessation of funding of new fossil fuel projects are significant, the devil will be in the detail, as Money Rebellion rightly points out.

I do not see how banks can continue lending to oil corporations for maintenance of existing fossil fuel projects, whilst ensuring that those loans do not release oil corporation funds for investing in new fossil fuel projects. We put this question to both HSBC and Lloyds Banks and interestingly neither responded.

The only way I can see to stop leakage of bank funds into new projects, is to only lend to oil corporations that have ceased new fossil projects and who commit to only investing in renewable energy, storage and energy efficiency going forward.

Whether these announcements are more greenwashing or not, the fact that HSBC have formally stated “Guidance from international energy and scientific bodies indicates that forecasted global oil and gas demand out to 2050 in a net zero scenario, is more than met by existing known fields”, clearly legitimises what JSO and Money Rebellion have been shouting. It also morally undermines the Sunak government’s obsession with turbo-charging new UK North Sea oil and gas investments, by providing eye-watering billions in tax subsidies to the oil corporations investing there.

With a successful 2022 behind them, campaigners say that Barclay’s is now the largest remaining target for the UK’s climate finance movement in 2023. They are the seventh largest global fossil fuel funder, having invested $166bn since Paris.

Campaign groups say that ordinary people can help by moving their Barclay’s account to a greener bank such as Triodos or Nationwide, and by urging any businesses or charities they are associated with to do the same. But the banks are only the beginning and with a UK government and Cop28 ban on all new fossil fuel projects being the ultimate goal, we are only now on the foothills of the action necessary to stop all new fossil fuel investments.

We wish all the UK’s brave climate finance protectors an even more successful 2023.