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World desk6 min

How to Compare Banks on Climate Commitments and Fossil Fuel Lending

A practical guide to checking bank climate targets, fossil-fuel financing and expansion, policy exclusions, and low-carbon finance on comparable terms.
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To compare banks on climate action, look at three separate things: how credible and broad their climate commitments are, what their policies and financing data say about fossil fuels—especially expansion—and how much low-carbon energy they finance under comparable definitions. No single score answers all three, and a bank’s reported financing is not a trace of your personal deposit.

Why one climate score cannot tell the whole story

A net-zero pledge is a starting point, not proof that a bank has stopped financing fossil fuels or is on track to meet its target. A useful assessment keeps three questions distinct:

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  • Is the commitment specific and being implemented? Check its coverage, milestones, governance and disclosed progress.
  • What fossil-fuel financing does the bank facilitate? Establish the year, instruments, companies and activities counted.
  • How does its low-carbon energy financing compare? Use the same source, period and activity boundaries as the fossil-fuel figure wherever possible.

Each dataset measures a defined slice of activity. A ranking is evidence about that measure—not a complete judgment of a bank, and not a recommendation about where to keep an account.

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Assess the commitment, not just the net-zero headline

Record the details that determine what a pledge actually covers. The Transition Pathway Initiative Centre’s banking framework offers a structured way to examine bank strategy, climate governance, exposure and emissions disclosure, and target alignment. Its assessment scope and year matter: the framework materials describe a 2024 bank assessment scope, so do not treat an assessment as a live reading of every bank’s current policies.

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  • Sectors and activities: Which parts of the bank’s financing are included or left outside the target?
  • Emissions and metrics: Does the bank report financed emissions? Are targets absolute, intensity-based, or both?
  • Baseline and milestones: Note the baseline year, interim dates and end date. A distant end date without near-term checkpoints makes progress harder to assess.
  • Governance and delivery: Look for board or senior-management oversight, a transition strategy, accountability and reporting against interim targets.
  • Benchmark alignment: Check whether targets are assessed against low-carbon pathways, and which sectors and activities are covered.

The World Resources Institute’s Financial Institutions Net Zero Tracker finds that the breadth and depth of institutional commitments vary. Alliance membership or a public pledge should therefore be read alongside the bank’s actual disclosures and financing evidence, not used as a substitute for them. WRI Financial Institutions Net Zero Tracker; TPI Centre Banking Tool.

Read fossil-fuel financing figures with their boundaries

“Fossil-fuel financing” is not one universally standardized total. Before comparing figures, check the transaction types included, the companies covered, the reporting period and how financing is attributed to fossil-fuel activity.

For example, Banking on Climate Chaos includes lending and debt and equity underwriting. The OECD’s energy-supply financing estimate uses a different scope: recourse debt, public equity, project finance and tax equity. These figures should not be blended into a single league table or treated as directly interchangeable without a defensible method for harmonizing their definitions and samples.

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The OECD’s Review on Aligning Finance with Climate Goals 2026 estimates that close to 1,400 large banks provided almost USD 1.1 trillion in fossil-fuel energy-supply financing in 2024. That is an estimate for the review’s stated energy-supply categories and instruments, not a total for every form of fossil-fuel finance by every bank worldwide. The OECD cautions that granular, standardized global data remain limited: “Continued limitations in granular and standardised global data on banks’ holdings and new investments prevent a comprehensive climate assessment of their portfolios.” OECD Review on Aligning Finance with Climate Goals 2026.

Separate fossil-fuel expansion from sector-wide financing

A bank can finance fossil-fuel companies without every transaction funding a new oil field, pipeline or LNG facility. Conversely, a project restriction may leave open other ways of financing a company that is expanding production or infrastructure. Read expansion-related measures separately from an overall fossil-fuel total.

Rainforest Action Network’s 2026 Banking on Climate Chaos edition covers 65 large banks and its defined set of fossil-fuel companies. It reports USD 906 billion committed to fossil-fuel companies in 2025 and USD 8.7 trillion in such financing since the Paris Agreement. The report also records USD 508 billion in 2025 financing for companies it identifies as expanding fossil fuels, a 27% increase from the prior year. The expansion figure depends on the report’s company lists and definition; it is not a measure of all banks or a direct substitute for the broader fossil-fuel total.

The 2026 dataset breaks out expansion categories including upstream, midstream and power. When examining a bank, find out which category is driving the result rather than assuming that one expansion figure means the same activity for every company. Banking on Climate Chaos; Rainforest Action Network, June 8, 2026 release.

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Inspect what fossil-fuel policies actually exclude

A policy can sound broad in a headline yet apply only to certain projects, fuels, regions or thresholds. Read the operative language and exceptions. In particular, determine whether a restriction applies to projects or companies, and whether it covers upstream production, midstream infrastructure, LNG facilities, or only a subset of these.

  • Project or company: A project-level restriction may not prevent financing the company behind it.
  • Activity and fuel: Check separate treatment of coal, oil and gas, including extraction and infrastructure.
  • LNG: Look for explicit coverage of LNG export and import facilities and for exceptions.
  • Scope and thresholds: Note geography, client definitions, revenue or activity thresholds, and any carve-outs.

Reclaim Finance’s Oil and Gas Policy Tracker grades the scope of bank policies, distinguishing progressively broader exclusions and their treatment of LNG infrastructure. Its stated last update is June 2026; a tracker grade describes policy scope, not the bank’s complete financing record. Reclaim Finance Oil and Gas Policy Tracker.

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Compare low-carbon and fossil-fuel finance fairly

Do not assume that a bank’s sustainable-finance target can be compared directly with a fossil-fuel lending total. The two numbers may cover different instruments, activities, periods or eligibility rules. “Low-carbon” and “green” also depend on what the source counts.

The OECD reports that, for its large-bank sample, fossil-fuel energy-supply financing remained higher than low-carbon energy-supply financing in 2024, though the gap had narrowed since 2021. Its 2024 estimates were almost USD 1.1 trillion for fossil-fuel energy supply and just under USD 1 trillion for low-carbon energy supply, across close to 1,400 large banks. These paired figures belong to the OECD’s categories and methodology; they do not establish a universal ratio for all banks or all sustainable finance.

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For historical context, WRI reported a median green-finance-to-fossil-fuel-finance ratio of 1.3 to 1 between 2018 and 2022 in its bank sample. This is a historical, sample-specific result, not a current industry-wide comparison. Do not set it beside the OECD’s 2024 energy-supply estimates as though the definitions, periods and bank samples matched. OECD Review on Aligning Finance with Climate Goals 2026; WRI Financial Institutions Net Zero Tracker.

A practical process for checking a particular bank

  1. Identify the entity. Confirm the bank’s legal or reported name, parent and subsidiary relationships, and the geography covered by each source. Do not assume a parent-company result applies identically to every local brand.
  2. Read the bank’s own strategy and policies. Record publication dates, sectors covered, baseline and target dates, interim milestones, exclusions and exceptions.
  3. Check a structured commitment assessment. Use TPI’s banking framework to review strategy, governance, disclosure, exposure and target coverage; note the assessment year and sample.
  4. Check policy detail. Use a policy tracker to compare project and company restrictions, upstream and midstream coverage, LNG rules and carve-outs.
  5. Consult financing data separately. Banking on Climate Chaos provides its defined 65-bank fossil-fuel and expansion measures; the OECD provides a broader aggregate estimate with a different activity and instrument scope.
  6. Compare like with like. For any bank-by-bank comparison, align year, transaction types, client scope and attribution rules. If they cannot be aligned, show the measures separately and explain their boundaries instead of manufacturing a combined score.
  7. Date-stamp your conclusion. Policies and reported financing change, so record the source dates and recheck current disclosures before relying on a comparison.

What the numbers say about your deposit

Bank-level financing datasets do not trace a particular retail customer’s deposit into a specific fossil-fuel loan or underwriting deal. They estimate financing facilitated by banks under stated methods. A bank’s aggregate figure can inform a comparison of its activities, but it cannot establish that a particular customer’s money funded a particular transaction.

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