UK banks’ support of Cambo oil project ‘hypocritical’, campaigners say

Many of Britain’s largest banks have been labelled “hypocritical” by campaigners over their financial support of the Cambo oil project.

More than a dozen UK and international banks, including Barclays, HSBC and Standard Chartered, provide finance or advisory services to Shell and Siccar Point – the two companies behind the controversial fossil fuel project.

This is despite the fact that these banks have made commitments to align their portfolios with the goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, according to the environmental law charity ClientEarth.

Lawyers from the charity have written to 17 major banks asking them to justify their support for the operators of Cambo in light of their climate commitments.

Each bank has promised to cut the climate impact of its financial activities, either by joining the UN’s Net-Zero Banking Alliance or by signing its Collective Commitment to Climate Action.

“You cannot claim to be transitioning to net zero, while at the same time supporting clients that are spearheading a risky oil and gas project clearly at odds with net-zero goals,” said Jamie Sawyer, a lawyer at ClientEarth.

“We challenge the directors of every bank that is enabling the Cambo project to justify such hypocrisy.”

The UK government has previously come under fire from campaigners, researchers and politicians for refusing to rule out approving the new oil field ahead of Cop26, a global climate conference being hosted by the UK in Glasgow in November.

These groups have warned that approving the project, which would produce up to 170mn barrels of crude oil from 2025 until 2050, could damage the UK’s efforts to lead the conference.

An influential report from the International Energy Agency published in May said there can be no new fossil fuel production anywhere in the world if global climate targets are to be met.

The Independent’s Stop Fuelling the Climate Crisis campaign is shining a light on how UK banks are continuing to support fossil fuels in the run-up to Cop26.

A report released earlier this year found that the UK’s top five banks provided around £220bn ($304bn) in finance for fossil fuel projects from 2016 to 2020.

Prof Peter Newell, a researcher of politics and environmental issues at the University of Sussex, said ClientEarth was “right to draw attention to the complicity and hypocrisy of leading banks”.

“As recent protests in London have highlighted, many of these UK-based banks have a global responsibility and, as host of this year’s critical Cop summit, we can’t allow them to keep funding the climate crisis,” he told The Independent.

“It begs the question what the Net-Zero Banking Alliance will do about members who are blatantly ignoring the goal to align their lending and investment portfolios with net-zero emissions.”

Tessa Khan, an environmental lawyer and founder of the oil and gas campaign group Uplift, said UK banks were guilty of “pre-Cop corporate puff” designed “to persuade us they’re taking the climate crisis seriously”.

“They’re providing critical backing to get Cambo off the ground, despite knowing we need to keep the oil in the ground if we’re to have a chance of limiting warming to safe levels,” she told The Independent.

“When they withdraw from new oil and gas projects, then we can start to take their climate pledges seriously.”

The Independent approached representatives of Barclays, HSBC and Standard Chartered for comment.