On December 22, 2022, JPMorgan Chase released its climate report in an effort to provide details on how the bank is responding to climate risks. Rainforest Action Network’s response to the report is below.
Today, two days before a major holiday, JPMorgan Chase’s 2022 Climate Report reveals just what we expected — low ambition climate targets that have resulted in no real emissions reductions. The bank is failing even by their own weak, intensity-only metrics for the oil and gas sector, reporting a 1% increase over baseline emissions. We cannot find the bank’s newly announced targets credible when they are based on virtually the same assumptions and business practices that have made Chase the biggest funder of the fossil fuel sector for years — $382 billion in funding for fossil fuels since 2016. Today’s report shows that Chase is more concerned about the risks to their bottom line than the risks to the climate – in other words, they are willing to sacrifice frontline communities tomorrow to maintain their profits today.
JPMorgan Chase knows what it must do. It must set absolute targets for emissions reductions; set a transition plan to align all their financing with an ambitious 1.5C pathway to limit climate disasters; and it must set clear criteria for their clients, with real consequences for those clients who fail to act. Most importantly, the bank must stop financing fossil fuel expansion. They are failing on all fronts.
— April Merleaux, Climate & Energy Research Manager