Fossil fuel financing from the world’s 60 largest banks has reached USD $5.5 trillion in the seven years since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, with $673 billion in fossil fuel financing in 2022 alone. This report examines commercial and investment bank financing for the fossil fuel industry, aggregating their leading roles in lending and underwriting debt and equity issuances. Fossil fuel financing plateaued in 2020, rebounded in 2021, and leveled out again in 2022 owing to unusual geopolitical and economic conditions, not shifts in bank policy.

Financial companies are increasingly being recognized — by their clients, shareholders, regulators, and the general public — as climate actors, with a responsibility to mitigate their climate impact. For the banks highlighted in this report, the last year has brought a groundswell of activism demanding banks cut their fossil fuel financing, at the same time that increasingly extreme weather events have further underscored the urgency of the climate crisis.

This report adds up financing from 35 private-sector banks to the fossil fuel industry, summing their leading roles in lending and underwriting of debt and equity issuances. These 35 banks from Canada, China, Europe, Japan, and the U.S. have together funneled USD $2.7 trillion into fossil fuels in the four years since the Paris Agreement was adopted (2016-2019). The biggest fossil bank over that time was JPMorgan Chase, followed by its U.S. peers: Wells Fargo, Citi, and Bank of America. Over those four years, RBC was the biggest fossil bank in Canada, MUFG in Japan, Barclays in Europe, and Bank of China in China. 

Uranium mining is a crucial stage in the nuclear energy production chain. During the past years, global demand for uranium increased more strongly than the output of uranium mines. As a result, prices have risen considerably. In turn, this is spurring new investments by mining companies in developing new uranium mines. To finance these investments, mining companies use the funds supplied by their financial stakeholders: shareholders, banks, bondholders.

Financial institutions involved in the financing of uranium mining companies, such as banks and asset managers, therefore play a crucial role in the further growth of the global nuclear energy sector.

For this reasons, World Information Services on Energy (WISE) has commissioned Profundo to research the involvement of international financial institutions in the financing of the uranium mining sector. In consultation, a group of 14 uranium miners was selected, including the world's largest uranium mining companies and smaller players with activities in Kazakhstan. Together, these 14 companies account for more than 90% of the world's uranium production.

This report provides an overview of the financial institutions which were involved since early 2003 in the financing of 14 selected uranium mining companies. For each company, the financial stakeholders aredescribed and analyzed in a separate chapter. Each type of financial service (shareholding, lending,investment banking and other services) provided to the uranium mining company is discussed separately, providing details on the financial institutions' involvement.

The findings of this study are summarized on the first pages of this report.