JPMorgan Chase Sets Insufficient Emissions “Intensity” Targets For Its Dirtiest Financing

Washington, DC -- Today, JPMorgan Chase released its 2030 interim emissions “intensity” targets for its financing of oil and gas, electric power, and auto manufacturing, following the bank’s October commitment to align its financing activities with the goals of the Paris Agreement. While setting sector-specific interim targets as part of a broader long-term climate strategy is critical, JPMorgan Chase exclusively setting intensity reduction targets — greenhouse gas emissions per unit of production — for some of its dirtiest financing is insufficient and provides the bank cover for their overall emissions to continue going up.

Since the Paris Agreement was adopted in late 2015, JPMorgan Chase has provided $317 billion in fossil fuel financing ― 33% more than any other private bank in the world. In that time, JPMorgan Chase has also been the world’s largest financier of companies actively engaged in expanding fossil fuel operations. Last month, JPMorgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon, sought to excuse the bank’s continued financing of fossil fuels in his influential annual letter to shareholders.

To align with the Paris Agreement, JPMorgan Chase should make ending expansion of fossil fuels a precondition for financing clients involved in coal, oil and gas, commit to phasing out its fossil fuel financing, on a timeline consistent with limiting climate change to 1.5°C, and end their support for projects and companies implicated in human rights abuses, including Indigenous rights abuses, such as their support of Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline in northern Minnesota.

In response, Sierra Club financial advocacy campaign manager Ben Cushing issued the following statement:

“Setting interim climate targets aimed at some of the most polluting sectors like oil and gas, electric power, and autos is a step in the right direction, but the fact that the world’s largest banker of fossil fuels is not setting absolute emissions reduction goals provides cover for JPMorgan Chase to continue to support the expansion of the fossil fuel industry. Oil and gas companies’ promises to reduce the emissions per barrel of oil while overall production goes up is a dangerous diversion from what really matters to addressing the climate crisis, and JPMorgan Chase is enabling that greenwashing. If JPMorgan Chase wants its ‘Paris-aligned’ pledge to be taken seriously, it needs to set out near-term targets for reducing its absolute emissions and put an end to its financing of fossil fuel expansion.”