Financing the corporate expansion of Fossil Fuel companies: New report says Line 5 operator Enbridge tops the list

The notorious fossil fuel corporation Enbridge, was one of the main culprits in a new report published by the Indigenous Environmental Network, entitled, Banking on Climate Chaos: Fossil Finance Report 2024.

The report provides some pretty sobering findings, such as:

• The 60 biggest banks globally committed $705 B USD to companies conducting business in fossil fuels in 2023, bringing the total since the Paris agreement to $6.9 Trillion. 
• These banks committed $347 billion in 2023 and $3.3 trillion total since 2016 to expansion companies – those companies that the Global Oil & Gas Exit List and the Global Coal Exit List report having expansion plans. 
• In 2023, JPMorgan Chase ranks #1 as the worst financier of fossil fuels. The bank increased its financing from $38.7 billion in 2022 to $40.8 billion in 2023. 

The introduction of the report provides us with an important way of thinking about the urgency of massive reduction in the use of fossil fuels, which includes an end to the financing of more fossil fuel exploration, along with the expansion of new fossil fuel pipelines. The introduction states: 

The fossil fuel industry continues doing its best to ignore the facts, evidenced by their reckless expansion plans (see p. 52) and rollbacks on their already weak climate commitments. Greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels increased in 2023, following increases in 2022.

And 2023 was the hottest year on record, with an average global surface temperature 1.4°C above 19th century averages.

 Climate impacts are intensifying: 2023 saw heat waves, droughts, stronger storms, atmospheric rivers, flooding, record low global sea ice, tropical cyclones, and a global wildfire crisis. These impacts could quadruple heat deaths and create food insecurity for over half a billion people on the planet.

Unless action is taken now, it’s estimated that climate change will kill an additional 250,000 people annually, especially in areas deprived of adaptive infrastructure. Without drastic cuts in fossil fuels, the climate will reach a catastrophic 3°C of warming by 2100.

The report lists the fossil fuel corporations that have the largest expansion plans and right at the top is the Canadian-based corporation Enbridge, which operates Line 5 in Michigan and is attempting to build a tunnel under the Great Lakes for part of the Line 5 pipeline. Enbridge received bank financing to the tune of $35 Billion to expand their empire and perpetuate fossil fuel consumption and increasing the climate crisis. 

When Gretchen Whitmer first campaigned to be the Governor of Michigan in 2018, she promised to shut down the Enbridge operated Line 5. Whitmer, like so many politicians, has not kept that promise to dismantle the necessary infrastructure that perpetuates fossil fuel consumption.

The only feasible was to stop fossil fuel corporations and the banks that finance them is to engage in massive campaigns of direct action to shut them down. We know that this can work. The Indigenous Environmental Network documented the impact of direct action campaigns – primarily led by Indigenous people – stating in a 2021 report: “Indigenous-led resistance campaigns against pipelines in the US and Canada have reduced greenhouse gas pollution by at least 25% annually since these campaigns began.” Maybe we need to learn from those on the front lines of the resistance and start embracing the collective power we could have if we chose to use direct action before it’s too late.