SBI fossil fuel lending falls, but an exclusion policy is nowhere in sight

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A woman walks past a logo of State Bank of India

Synopsis
The State Bank of India’s (SBI) lending to the fossil fuel industry amounted to USD30.3 billion since 2016, and it has no exclusion policy for the coal, oil and gas sectors, the largest contributor to climate change. A global report looks at the country’s largest public sector lender’s fossil fuel financing journey and records a non-linear trend.

Funding for fossil fuels continues to grow at a large scale even as the world stares at an increase in extreme weather events due to global warming. Fossil fuel financing from the world’s largest banks has reached USD5.5 trillion in the seven years since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, with USD673 billion in fossil fuel financing in 2022 alone. State Bank of India’s (SBI) financing to fossil fuel companies in 2022 was one of the lowest in