Climate: BNP Paribas defends itself after being sued for financing fossil fuels

Romain Rouillard (remarks collected by Baptiste Morin) 7:30 p.m., February 24, 2023

The floor is on the defense.

Contacted by Europe 1 this Thursday, the French bank BNP Paribas spoke about its summons to justice by various associations.

The latter criticize the company for its financial support for new fossil fuel projects.

According to the 2022 edition of Banking on Climate Chaos, a report drawn up by a dozen NGOs, BNP Paribas sits at the top of the ranking of banks having granted financing to the oil and gas tenors such as TotalEnergies, Shell and BP.

The trial will be heard by the Paris court. 

With Europe 1, Antoine Sire, director of corporate engagement at BNP Paribas, begins by expressing some doubts as to the reliability of the data cited above.

"The complaint is filed on the basis of figures which are a kind of accumulation of credits, of different financial products. It is very difficult to verify, confirm or contradict because we do not really know what is in it. “, he believes.

And prefers to highlight other figures, provided by the British NGO Share Action.

"This NGO ranks the action of European banks in favor of the climate and BNP Paribas clearly comes out on top. The NGOs that assign us have chosen not to continue the dialogue that we could have initiated following our response because it was our proposal. We regret it. 

BNP Paribas promises "40 billion euros of credit" for renewables by 2030

Antoine Sire then boasts of an ecological approach led by the French bank, far from the accusations made by these associations.

“Over the years, we have not stopped adopting policies aimed at lowering the share of fossil fuels and increasing the share of renewables. Today, we are already at 55% low-carbon energies, essentially renewable and 45% fossil energy. At the rate at which we are launched, in 2030, we will have more than 80% of our investments which will be low-carbon".

And undertakes to "accelerate on renewables" to the tune of "40 billion euros of credit" by 2030.

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Finally, the director of corporate engagement at BNP recalled the reality of the energy sector, in previous years, which justifies, according to him, the financing granted by BNP Paribas.

"It is absolutely correct that historically our energy financing was fossil fuel financing because that was the only thing in the energy sector. Of all our energy loans energy ten years ago, there was 95% fossil energy and 5% low-carbon energy", he admits.

But now, the bank "no longer finances the exploration and production" of oil, he says. 

A paradigm shift that also arouses discontent according to Antoine Sire.

“In the previous months, several American states decided to blacklist BNP Paribas because they read our policies and saw that we were going to get out of the fossil fuel,” he confides.

And thus regrets the contradictory injunctions, addressed to the French bank.

"We are both singled out by people who find that we are not doing enough and by people who find that we are doing too much", he summarizes.