European banks financing Amazon rainforest oil trade despite climate pledge: Reports

Days after European investors warn Brazil authorities about the escalating deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, European banks dedicated to back action on climate crisis are now facing allegations of double standards from the indigenous groups in Ecuador. This comes after a report named the European banks as the major stakeholders in oil trade from the Amazon rainforest. 

According to reports, two climate watchdogs have claimed European banks including ING, Credit Suisse, Natixis, BNP Paribas, UBS, and Rabobank were the largest supporters in the shipment of nearly $10 billion Ecuadorian crude oil to the refineries in the United States over the last ten years. These banks have not only identified the environmental commitments but have claimed to support them including the 2015 Paris climate accord. 

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However, the indigenous communities protesting against the exploitation of their territory by the oil industry have said that any bank supporting the oil trade from the Amazon rainforest was complicit in growing threats to the world’s largest rainforest, international media reported.

Marlon Vargas, president of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon told an international news agency that the ‘banks are engaging in double standards’. He further noted that devastating the Amazon implies devastating of life itself. 

While already fighting raging wildfires, the Amazon rainforest that spans across nine nations in South America also faces deforestation for agriculture and mining.

According to scientists, since the 1970s at least 15 to 17 percent of the original forest has already been destroyed. The rainforest plays an important role in regulating the Earth’s temperature by absorbing a greenhouse gases like Carbon Dioxide. The researchers have reportedly warned that any further deforestation in the Amazon would push ‘Earth’s lungs’ past the tipping point. 

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European banks deny allegations

Despite the report titled ‘European Banks Financing Trade of Amazon Oil to the US’ raised questions on the credibility of their commitments, Netherlands' Rabobank is reported to have stated that it had halted its financing of Ecuadorian crude cargoes earlier in 2020. It also said that the concerns raised were adhering to their policy obligations and part of due diligence in trade finance operations. 

Meanwhile, French bank Natixis and Dutch bank ING have pledged to look into the issues raised in the report. Swiss bank UBS has said that it has already declined some crude oil transactions from the rainforest due to the concerns surrounding the indigenous land rights, international media reported.

While Credit Suisse is reported to have said that the issues raised failed to represent any breach of any of oil and gas lending policies, French bank BNP Paribas called the methodology of the report “opaque”. 

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(With agency inputs; Image: AP)