How Barclays and HSBC are funding climate change

Barclays and HSBC are financing companies polluting our planet and in the process, harming women’s rights. This is patriarchy in action.

ActionAid is campaigning with women’s movements to get these banks to stop funding fossil fuels and industrial agriculture, and to get governments to invest in sustainable alternatives.

Take action: Tell the CEOs of Barclays and HSBC: Stop funding climate change.

About ActionAid

ActionAid puts women and children at the centre of our work across 45 countries. Because whether it’s the result of being displaced by war, recovering from the aftermath of an earthquake, or simply being born into a deprived community, women and children - girls especially - are the most affected by poverty.

So we make sure girls go to and stay in school, we work with communities to end gender-based violence, and we train women in the skills they need to earn a living.

Almost all of the people and partners who run our programmes are from the developing world. This means our staff are on the ground and have experienced poverty first hand. We see day-to-day how poverty affects people’s lives, and are uniquely placed to give a voice to the women and children who suffer the most.

We demand action to change the factors that keep poor people poor at local, national and international level. We don’t walk away until we’ve achieved lasting change.

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How Barclays and HSBC are fuelling climate destruction

£ 336 billion
has been invested by Barclays and HSBC in fossil fuels and industrial agriculture since the 2015 Paris Agreement at COP21.

14 times
Women and girls are 14 times more likely to die from climate disasters than men.

$ 5.7 m/day
was invested by Barclays and HSBC in Shell between 2016 and 2022.

Fighting pollution: Martha's story

Activists in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria are sharing how Shell, the fossil fuel giant, is devastating their communities with oil spills, gas flaring, polluted water and human rights abuses.

Contaminated waterways caused by massive oil-spills and persistent gas flaring has decimated fish populations, resulting in the loss of countless livelihoods and a sharp rise in hunger.

Fisherwomen like Martha are among those most affected as livelihoods are ripped away and hunger sharply rises. She says:

Before the arrival of Shell, when we cast our nets there was always a surplus of fish, and we would have problems taking all the fish home. Now that Shell has arrived, and they started burning their fire and spilling oil everywhere, since they came here, we cannot catch fish."

"We are dying of hunger. Even the water in our taps now has oil in it since Shell came. Water that is meant for consumption is now contaminated.

"Whenever we drink from the water, we always come down with stomach ache. The oil has damaged everything.”

How does climate change affect women and girls?

We know about the gendered impact of climate change from our work across the world.

We have seen time and time again how women and girls are pushed to drop out of school or marry early to help manage the financial stress that families face during droughts or floods.

In 2022, ActionAid research in Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia, and Nigeria found that climate change had also increased gender-based violence and damaged women’s mental health.