In a brief financial press release sent out on April 26, Var Energi was "pleased to announce" that it had raised €600 million to finance its activities. What the Norwegian oil and gas company didn't specify was the assistance of several guardian angels, notably including four French banking groups: Crédit Agricole, Société Générale and Natixis, which co-organized the transaction, as well as BNP Paribas, which played an administrative role.

Working with Var Energi, a company whose business is 100% focused on fossil fuels that emit high levels of greenhouse gases, does seem to contradict these banks' commitments to help meet the targets set out in the Paris Agreement. However, this collaboration is authorized under their climate commitment charters, since it takes the form of issuing financial bonds: The banks are not lending their money directly but rather assisting the energy company at multiple levels to borrow from private investors. This is known as indirect financing.

Le Monde collaborated with a dozen European media outlets, including Investico, Follow the Money, and The Guardian to lift the secrecy surrounding this little-known aspect of fossil fuel financing. The conclusion of our investigation, dubbed "Fossil Finance," is clear: When a gas or oil giant raises hundreds of millions of euros via financial bonds, European banks are almost always on board.

More than €1 trillion since 2016

In December 2015, the Paris Agreement formalized the urgent need to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Financing for fossil fuels, however, has not dried up since then. Between January 2016 and June 2023, no less than €1.011 trillion were raised by 307 major polluters to continue the expansion of their fossil fuel activities, all thanks to the issuance of 1,666 "gray" bonds. This source of funds represents some 20 to 40% of the sector's financing, with the rest being through direct loans.

While it's common to blame Asian and American banks for financing fossil fuels, European institutions are at the heart of this market: €776 billion, or 77% of the total, were financed with the assistance of at least one of them, almost as much as their American counterparts (€801 billion). French institutions (Crédit Agricole, BNP Paribas, Société Générale, and – to a lesser extent – Natixis) are among the most active in Europe in this respect: They are involved in just over half of all transactions (52%).

Saudi Aramco, ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, TotalEnergies... the list of the world's most heavily financed companies more or less coincides with that of the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases. And French institutions are no more selective than others.

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