UK Banks Lead Europe In Coal Financing After Glasgow
The Glasgow
Pledge and the Loan Book In November 2021, global leaders met in Glasgow for Cop26 and pledged to “phase down” coal use. They pledged to “phase down” coal use. Four years on, the banks that finance the fuel have moved in opposite directions. The figures come from a study by Urgewald, a Germany-based environmental and human rights organisation. Urgewald tracked loans and underwriting from 744 commercial banks around the world. The recipients were companies operating across the “coal value chain”. That category covers every stage of the industry, from mines and power generation to logistics, exploration and trading. Measured from Cop26, UK-based banks provided $8.3bn in coal financing. [1] In pounds, that is £6.2bn. German banks provided $4.9bn over the same four years. French banks provided $3.4bn. On that measure, British lenders are Europe’s biggest financial backers of the global coal industry. Two names carry the rise. Barclays increased its coal financing by 34%. [1] Its annual figure moved from approximately $1.2bn in 2022 to $1.6bn in 2025. HSBC’s coal financing more than doubled, from $200m to $414m. Both increases occurred between 2022 and 2025, despite high-profile climate and net zero commitments at both banks.
The Ledger Behind the Dispute
HSBC disputes the framing. It has committed to phasing out financing for thermal coal-fired power and thermal coal mining. The deadline is 2030 in EU and OECD markets. In other markets it is 2040. The bank links those commitments to a wider ambition: aligning the financed emissions in its portfolio with net zero by 2050. Its 2025 annual report and accounts quantify the trend. Financed emissions from thermal coal mining fell by 94% between 2020 and 2024. Reported thermal coal financing exposures fell from approximately $1bn to approximately $0.5bn over the same period. Those exposures are calculated on the basis set out in the bank’s disclosures. Barclays draws a distinction in its client list. It says many of the companies named in the report are diversified energy or mining companies. The bank says it does not provide financing to companies that generate most of their revenues from thermal coal mining or power generation. It describes its business as financing an energy sector in transition — meeting current energy needs while scaling clean energy. Heffa Schücking, the director of Urgewald, said: “Barclays and HSBC should explain why their financing is moving in the opposite direction to the rest of Europe.” [1]
The Global Picture
Set against the global picture, the dispute over two British banks is narrow. The UK’s four-year total of $8.3bn is dwarfed by the sums moving through other banking centres, though the report’s headline finding concerns Europe. Barclays’ $1.6bn and HSBC’s $414m are the subject of a public dispute. They are also a fraction of the global total the report describes.
