Barclays and HSBC named Europe's biggest coal financiers despite their high-profile net-zero pledges

From the Newshound archive · first published 30 September 2026 · last updated 1 October 2026.

Barclays raised its coal financing by 34% between 2022 and 2025, while HSBC more than doubled its funding from $200m to $414m across the same period. A report by German environmental group Urgewald found that UK banks had channelled $8.3bn into coal in the four years following the COP26 Glasgow summit, where world leaders pledged to phase down coal. That outstrips the $4.9bn lent by German banks and the $3.4bn provided by French banks over the same period, leaving the UK as Europe's largest coal financier by a considerable margin.

Urgewald director Heffa Schücking demanded Barclays and HSBC explain why their financing is 'moving in the opposite direction to the rest of Europe'.

The research covered loans and underwriting across 744 commercial banks worldwide, spanning the full coal value chain from mines and power generation through to logistics and trading.

Both banks have made high-profile net-zero commitments, making the sharp rise in coal lending a direct contradiction of their own public climate pledges.