A coalition of environmental organizations recorded an “unfathomable amount” of new investments in fossil fuels in 2025, noting a $64 billion (8%) annual increase across the world’s 65 biggest banks. The annual Banking on Climate Chaos report highlights a staggering 27% increase in funding for expanding extraction operations. Over half of the total $906 billion invested in fossil fuels in 2025 went to expanding companies.
“Expansion finance is uniquely consequential as it locks in decades of future carbon emissions,” the watchdog organizations caution. “The world’s largest banks are choosing to make our energy system more expensive, more fragile, and more unequal.”
The report notes that just twelve banks, dubbed “the Dirty Dozen,” control 39% of all bank fossil fuel deals. JPMorgan Chase, a Wall Street giant, remains the world’s biggest fossil fuel financier, having increased its funding by 12.5% to $58.2 billion in 2025.
