Top Banks Pumped Billions More Into The Dirtiest Fossil Fuels Last Year Even as they claimed they were committed to fighting climate change.

Some of the world’s biggest banks continue to lend money to support the dirtiest fossil fuels, despite global commitments to tackle climate change, according to a report published Wednesday, which picks out U.S. and Canadian banks as the worst offenders. Financing for extreme fossil fuels by the big banks increased 11 percent, from $104 billion in 2016 to $115 billion in 2017, according to the report. Three of them ― Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) and JPMorgan Chase ― were identified as the “biggest backsliders,” meaning they showed the greatest increases in such financing. All three tout their commitments to clean energy and environmental protection. But “every single dollar that these banks provide for the expansion of the fossil fuel industry is a dollar going to increase the climate crisis,” said Stephen Kretzmann, executive director of Oil Change International.

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