Barclays lent most to fossil fuel firms in 2023 of the UK banks, but its activities were dwarfed by US, Chinese and Japanese banks, a new report has found.
Rainforest Action Network said the world’s 60 largest lenders provided $705 billion in financing in 2023.
Lending on gas-fired, Arctic oil and gas and deepwater projects fell but was offset by LNG projects.
US bank JPMorgan topped the 2023 table, lending $40.8 billion, followed by US bank peer Bank of America and Japanese bank Mizuho.
JP Morgan was also named as the largest financier to oil and gas projects since the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, followed by BofA and Citi.
According to the climate group, the top sixty banks have provided US$6.9 trillion to the sector in the eight years since the Paris deal was signed.
Barclays in response, said it had cut the financing of energy sector emissions by 44% between 2020 and 2023, which was better than its 2030 target.
The UK bank was eighth on the list lending US$24 billion in 2023, though in each of the years between 2016 and 2021 financing had consistently been above US$30 billion.
HSBC was twelfth on the list but like Barclays, its financing has dropped sharply since 2021.
Barclays also said it disputed the methodology behind the statistics.