The French bank BNP Paribas will have to respond to Justice for its "financial support" to projects that contribute to climate change. It is the consequence of legal action undertaken by three French NGOs.
The organizations Les Amis de la Terre France, Notre Affaire À Tous and Oxfam France accuse BNP Paribas of ignoring its responsibility for the climate crisis and call on it to end its financial support for new fossil fuel projects with an exit plan oil and gas. This may be a landmark trial: the world's first climate litigation targeting a commercial bank.
“The urgent message being conveyed by the scientific community and the International Energy Agency has led to repeated calls and statements by the United Nations: a bank cannot claim to be committed to carbon neutrality while continuing to support new oil and gas projects," says Lorette Philippot, campaign manager for Friends of the Earth in France BNP Paribas is the main European financier of fossil fuel expansion.
The associations invoke the French law on the duty of vigilance to justify their action. Adopted in 2017 after the Rana Plaza tragedy (more than a thousand workers of multinational textiles died in the collapse of a building in Bangladesh in 2013), this law obliges large French companies to identify risks and prevent serious damage to the environment and to humans.
In this case, the NGOs criticize BNP Paribas for not applying it in climate matters, by continuing to finance companies that develop new oil and gas projects, and not preventing serious risks of human rights violations, including damage to the environment.
According to these NGOs, the French bank ignored the previous requirements of the three associations to end their support and financing activities for fossil fuels, which is why, after the period provided by law (three months) had elapsed without a response. , complainants have the right to resort to Justice.
And why target BNP Paribas? "Because the French bank is "the main European financier of the expansion of fossil fuels," explains Lorette Philippot, specialist in climate and financial affairs at Friends of the Earth.
Between 2016 (after the signing of the Paris agreement) and 2021, the bank granted 55,000 million dollars (51,770 million euros) in financing, in the form of loans or the issuance of shares or bonds, to large oil and gas companies such as TotalEnergies, BP or Shell, according to Le Monde.
In May 2021, the International Energy Agency itself requested that no further investment be made in new oil or gas facilities to maintain hopes of being able to stop the increase in temperatures by 1.5 °C (compared to pre-industrial times) and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
By joining the Net-Zero Banking Alliance in 2021, like most banking institutions, BNP Paribas committed to “financing a carbon neutral world by 2050”. Therefore, to really meet this objective, the associations ask the bank "to immediately cease all financial support" to "companies that develop new fossil fuel projects"
BNP Paribas has been denounced before the Judicial Court of Paris, which will be in charge of "setting a calendar for the next stages of the procedure".
The lawyers for the NGOs hope that the magistrates will rely on the UN and OECD guiding principles that "define the specific surveillance measures for activities supported by banks, their financing and their investments, and can go as far as stop the activity at the origin of the damage".
"BNP Paribas continues to issue blank checks to the largest fossil fuel companies with no conditions for a transition (...) With this summons, we strongly reiterate that our associations are determined to obtain a binding decision from the judge," Alexandre said in the statement. Poidatz, Oxfam's head of climate legal advocacy.
In its response to the associations on January 24, two days before the expiration of the formal notice prior to the lawsuit, BNP Paribas expressed its surprise at the demand. Their spokesmen indicate that to date, none of the major oil and gas companies have completely excluded this type of project. They believe that accepting the NGO request would be starving companies that play a key role in Europe's energy supplies without funding."
Company spokesmen admit that the "fossil fuel page" is "turning." Their spokespersons stress that in ten years, in their portfolio, they have gone from 95% fossil fuels to 45% and that more than 80% will be "low energy in 2030", according to Antoine Sire, a member of the of its executive committee.
This "extremely ambitious" track record makes BNP Paribas one of the world's most advanced banks in terms of fossil fuel outflow.
The bank recalls that it was one of the first to exit coal altogether and that the "oil exit trajectory" is now "compromised."
In a press release in response to the NGOs, he pledged to reduce current funding for oil extraction and production by 2030 by 80%.
With regard to gas, the objective is less ambitious: it points to a reduction of 30% by 2030. These announcements are considered "still largely insufficient" by these associations.
But these announcements, and the official response made to the lawyers of the three associations, "are still largely insufficient and in no way respond to the requests made in the notification document," say these entities. The bank does not require its clients to have a physical exit plan and no new oil and gas projects, when it committed in 2020 to do so for the coal sector. It even highlights in its announcements its intention to bet on new infrastructure and gas plants, they add
All this action occurs after a pioneering conflict that pitted the Urgenda Foundation against the Netherlands. This foundation accused the Dutch State of not meeting a minimum goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, which endangered the rights of citizens.
A similar precedent was set in France with the climate justice campaign "L'Affaire du siècle", which led to the French state being ordered by a court to address the damages of its climate inaction.
Les Amis de la Terre France, Notre Affaire À Tous and Oxfam France have been promoting the "L'affaire BNP Paribas" campaign since 2022, which has denounced the involvement of this bank in projects that are harmful to the environment and contrary to the objective of limiting global warming global.
