Climate emergency ignored as banks double down on coal and gas

While communities burn and flood, major banks continue financing coal and gas expansion, writes Kyle Robertson.

AUSTRALIANS ARE EXPERIENCING another scorching summer of deadly and terrifying bushfires, heatwaves and floods.

The world just endured the three hottest years on record, according to the World Meteorological Society, and the impacts of the climate crisis are worsening. But some of Australia’s biggest banks and super funds are failing us all by pouring money into new coal, oil and gas, fuelling catastrophic climate disasters.

Climate change is wreaking havoc, driving up the cost of living for Australians in all walks of life, from the cities to the most remote bush communities. Insurance premiums are surging due to the growing frequency and intensity of unnatural disasters. A growing number of homes and properties are becoming uninsurable, with more than one in seven (15 per cent) households experiencing insurance affordability stress in 2024.

Climate-related disasters are already costing Australians $4 billion a year and are expected to rise to a whopping $35 billion by 2050, according to the Climate Change Authority. The bedrock of our economy and way of life – Australia’s housing market – is expected to lose a staggering $500 billion in value by 2030. Almost 7 million Australians on the fringes of our capital cities are increasingly at risk of urban fires like the catastrophic blazes we saw in Los Angeles last year, according to a new Climate Council report.

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In our regions, farmers are doing it tough due to bushfires, floods and extreme drought. Many are unable to insure their farms because of the massive hikes in premiums in recent years, with some copping insurance bills north of $100,000.

Yet as climate catastrophes batter communities in all corners of the country, some of our largest financial institutions are propping up the very activities fuelling these disasters, all while passing the costs onto Australians enduring a cost-of-living crisis.

Big banks and superannuation funds have continued this appalling behaviour despite their public commitments to honour the climate goals of the Paris Agreement, which requires cutting support for new fossil fuels and accelerating cleaner and cheaper renewable energy.

When the world signed the Paris Agreement over a decade ago, it was agreed that limiting the worst effects of global warming required deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists and expert bodies, including the International Energy Agency and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, confirmed that the single largest source of emissions – fossil fuel production – would need to be reduced rapidly.

Instead, it’s gone the other way. According to projections from the Global Carbon Budget, global fossil fuel emissions are forecast to set another all-time record in 2025, enabled by big banks and investors, including our super funds.

According to the International Energy Agency, fossil fuel companies have poured over $17 trillion globally into coal, oil and gas in the last decade. In 2024, the world’s annual average temperature surpassed a 1.5°C increase above the pre-industrial period for the first time ever.

Let’s make no mistake, we are looking down the barrel of catastrophic warming levels of just below 3°C this century unless we speed up the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. At least 800 million people face being displaced due to rising sea levels and flooding. Longer deadly heatwaves are forecast to affect everyone on Earth by 2050.

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It’s beyond belief that major Australian banks, particularly ANZ and Westpac, continue to fund the fossil fuel expansion plans of some of the world’s biggest polluters like Woodside, Santos and BP.

Macquarie Group is backing one of Australia’s biggest new gas fracking projects, the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Basin, threatening clean water supplies for farmers and unleashing emissions equivalent to running Australia’s biggest coal power station, Eraring, into the next century.

These banks parrot the gas industry claims that more of their fossil fuel is needed for the transition to clean energy. But there is no need for the development of new gas supplies to meet export or domestic demand, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Put simply, we have enough gas already in production.

Our major banks control over 80 per cent of Australia’s mortgage market. Providing financial support to companies expanding fossil fuels is completely at odds with their moral and economic imperative to protect Australians and their homes from disasters.

Australia’s largest super funds are also failing to protect us from the ravages of climate change now and into the future. The top 30 funds have $33 billion invested in the 200 companies with the biggest fossil fuel expansion plans in the world, more than three times their investments in major clean energy companies. Our biggest super funds are major owners of three of Australia’s largest polluters — Santos, Woodside and Whitehaven Coal.

Super funds have a duty to act in the best financial interests of their members, but they’re fuelling catastrophic fires and other disasters, and risking a safe and prosperous retirement by failing to rein in Australia’s major climate polluters.

It’s time our financial institutions heed the emergency alarms and stop funding and enabling fossil fuel expansion. Especially as the mounting social, environmental and financial costs are passed on to everyday Australians.