NGOs launch legal battle against French bank BNP over fossil fuel investment
BNP Paribas has been urged to cease its support for the expansion of fossil fuels by three NGOs who are threatening the banking giant with unprecedented legal action. The move came on the eve of the annual Climate Finance Day, hosted in Paris.
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"This is the first step towards an unprecedented climate litigation case – the first in the world to target a commercial bank for its high-risk activities in the oil and gas sector," Oxfam, Friends of the Earth and Notre Affaire à Tous said on Wednesday.
The three NGOs are planning to sue the financial institution for not respecting the "duty of vigilance" law on environmental risks.
Since 2017, the French "vigilance" law has required large companies to take effective measures to prevent violations of human rights and the environment throughout their chain of activity.
Companies given formal notice have three months to comply and dialogue with NGOs, before a possible summons before the Paris court.
The groups accuse BNP Paribas of supporting "the most aggressive companies responsible for developing new oil and gas fields and infrastructures" despite repeated calls to stop new fossil fuel investments from the scientific community, the United Nations and the International Energy Agency.
.@OxfamFrance, @amisdelaterre and @NotreAffaire launch the #AffaireBNP
— Les Amis de la Terre FR (@amisdelaterre) October 26, 2022
The most polluting bank in 🇫🇷 has now 3 months to comply with the law and stop its financing to fossil fuels 🔥
Support our action 👇https://t.co/zCX8bWWXNl pic.twitter.com/OIP9mMEUAO
"In 2020, the carbon footprint of BNP Paribas was larger than that of the French territory," their statement reads.
The French banking group is the first European financier and fifth in the world for the development of fossil fuels, with "55 billion dollars in financing granted between 2016 and 2021" for new oil and gas projects.
The legal action comes just prior to the annual Climate Finance Day, hosted in Paris on Thursday. France's finance minister Bruno Le Maire is one of the 60 speakers invited to the international event.
The gathering of specialists linked to environment and economy was interrupted last year by Friends of the Earth who denounce a meeting of "greenwashing".
Contradiction with Paris agreement
In their formal notice, the NGOs want to see an exhaustive overview of the BNP's carbon footprint, including the emissions induced by its financing.
The NGOs said BNP Paribas must "reduce its CO2 emissions by 45 percent by 2030 compared to 2010 levels" and to "reduce its methane emissions by at least 30 percent by 2030 compared to 2020 levels ".
For the NGOs, BNP Paribas' support for the expansion and not the reduction of the use of hydrocarbons is in contradiction to the objectives of the Paris agreement of 2015, to try to limit global warming clearly under 2°C and if possible below 1.5°C compared to the pre-industrial era.
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BNP responded to the action by saying that the level of the objectives set for their 3-year horizon plan (up to 2025) "are (…) compatible with the prospect of financing a carbon-neutral economy by 2050".
"The bank has set itself the objective of financing renewable energies to the tune of 30 billion euros by 2025", a multiplication by 4 compared to 2015, the group told AFP on Wednesday.
BNP says that, at the end of 2021, "the extraction and production of oil and gas as well as refining only represented 1.3 percent" of the credits granted by the bank.
No exclusion policy
In May 2022, BNP Paribas promised to reduce its loans linked to oil and gas production by 12 percent by 2025, compared to 2020.
The bank also said it would no longer finance companies for which 10 percent of the activity is related to oil sands or shale oil and gas.
But the NGOs point to the fact that the bank has no exclusion policy concerning new conventional hydrocarbon projects.
In 2021, the International Energy Agency (IEA) called for an immediate end to all new investment in fossil fuels.
But many developing countries are counting on hydrocarbons in the medium term to get out of their dependence on coal, which emits twice as many greenhouse gases.
This means turning to big international companies to achieve this, an ambition impossible to achieve without the capital provided by the world of finance.
But the climate activists insist that the world's dependency on fossil fuels has left people defenseless against the soaring energy prices.
"Each new fossil fuel project financed by BNP Paribas means more droughts, floods, forest fires, and also higher energy prices for people," says Alexandre Poidatz, advocacy officer at Oxfam France.
"We need to make sure that today’s investments shape a better world tomorrow".
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