The year 2024 went down in history as the warmest on record, following the record levels of greenhouse gases in 2023. These extremes have directly contributed to more frequent and destructive weather events around the world, from devastating hurricanes to droughts and floods., which have devastated vast areas and communities. While the scientific community and international agreements strongly call for an urgent transition away from coal, oil and gas, the global financial system is moving in exactly the opposite direction. Expert report Banking on Climate Chaos (BOCC) 2025 reveals that World banks are backtracking on their climate pledges en masse and shockingly increased fossil fuel financing in 2024,.

Billions of dollars to deepen the crisis

The numbers in the report speak for themselves. In 2024, the world's 65 largest banks provided companies operating in the fossil fuel industry with staggering 869 billion US dollars. More than two-thirds of the institutions monitored increased their flow of money into polluting sectors year-on-year. Since 2021, the sector has received a total of $3.3 trillion from banks, bringing the total to $7.9 trillion since the Paris Agreement came into force in 2016.

Even more alarming is the discovery that $429 billion of this amount for 2024 went directly to expansion. This has funded companies that are building new gas pipelines, exploring new offshore deposits and building infrastructure with a long lifespan. This trend flatly contradicts warnings from the International Energy Agency (IEA), according to which a strict Net Zero scenario does not allow for any new expansion of fossil fuels.

A giant American bank is at the absolute top of the list of the largest fossil financiers JPMorgan Chase, which pumped $53.5 billion into the sector in 2024. It is followed by Bank of America (46 billion USD), Citigroup (44.7 billion USD) and Japan's Mizuho Financial (40.3 billion USD). Financial institutions from the US dominate, covering up to a third of this global volume. A significant part of the increase last year was driven by financing mergers and acquisitions (a record 82.9 billion USD), which helped consolidate the market power of giant gas corporations extracting methane and shale gas,,.

Hidden loopholes and retreat from commitments Why do banks that pride themselves on their "green" certificates still finance the destruction of the planet? The answer lies in the intentionally left loopholes in their internal regulations. Only 6.4% of bank finance in the fossil fuel sector is project finance, while the vast majority (nearly 94% of %) is provided as general corporate financing for the company's operations. Many banks have formally banned direct lending to, for example, Arctic drilling, but then lend billions to entire mining multinationals, routinely circumventing their own bans.

Moreover, we are witnessing an unprecedented reversal of climate pledges in 2024. The American, Canadian and Japanese banks tracked in the report have all left the alliance en masse. Net Zero Bank Alliance (NZBA). Of the original members analyzed in BOCC, only 30 remain in the alliance. Wells Fargo even completely deleted its 2030 reduction targets and climate neutrality by 2050, becoming the institution with perhaps the worst risk management on Wall Street.

Climatic tipping points and the paradox of markets While the financial sector is driving the world to ruin in pursuit of quick profits, the Earth system faces nonlinear risks called „"tipping points". These are critical limits beyond which even a small warming will trigger irreversible cascading changes. These include the dying of the Amazon rainforest, melting permafrost and the loss of coral reefs. Corals are facing a global existential threat right before our eyes – between 2023 and 2025, an alarming 84% of all corals in the world will suffer massive bleaching. With their disappearance, we will lose the essential ecosystem for a quarter of marine life.

Paradoxically, JP Morgan's internal "Climate Intuition" document itself admits that traditional discounted cash flow (DCF) models they cannot correctly reflect these nonlinear phenomena in market prices,. The reason is the lack of historical precedents, non-linear development and especially the fact that „tipping points“ will not fully manifest themselves for several decades, while the average tenure of directors in large corporations lasts only about 7.6 years,. This is a huge contradiction, the so-called „one bank with two floors“ approach. While one analytical division of JP Morgan educates the public about the overwhelming impacts of climate tipping points and pricing failures,, the other makes the institution the absolute largest financial donor to the fossil fuel industry on the planet,.

Frontline consequences and the need for regulation The consequences of this greed are not shared equally. Frontline communities are particularly affected, as new infrastructure is being built on their lands. The Wangan and Jagalingou indigenous people in Australia are defending their land from the giant Carmichael coal mine. Fracking in Argentina’s Vaca Muerta region is contaminating water and causing earthquakes, which Mapuche communities are struggling to cope with. People living around the Papua LNG project face a threat to their survival in a region of extraordinary biodiversity, while the expanded Trans Mountain Pipeline in Canada is further threatening sacred sites and critically endangered orca populations.

The conclusions of this critical year serve as a global wake-up call. Reliance on voluntary promises from giant financial houses has failed miserably. As the banks themselves refuse to sacrifice profits from destructive projects in the name of preserving a stable planet, the report's authors make a clear call to the competent authorities: binding and enforceable restrictions must be introduced immediately and resolutely prevent institutions from further financing the expansion of the fossil fuel industry. Without systemic government intervention, we will only continue to buy our own climate extinction.