Publications Featuring GCEL

GCEL is not only a tool for financial institutions. It is also used by NGOs, campaigners, journalists and academics worldwide to assess which financial institutions are still investing in our climate’s worst enemy.

Still Banking on Coal

In November 2021, it looked like an end of coal was finally in sight. At COP26 in Glasgow, the governments of 197 countries agreed to phase down coal and many of the world’s largest commercial banks pledged to decarbonize their portfolios. But Still Banking on Coal shows that coal financing is still growing.
It’s as if Glasgow never happened!

Urgewald's research Still Banking on Coal uses the Global Coal Exit List to show that commercial banks still injected $385 billion into the industry since January 2022.

Still Banking on Coal

Banking on Climate Chaos

The world's biggest banks committed $7.9 trillion to the fossil fuel industry over the last 9 years. After two years of decline, banks increased fossil fuel financing by $162.5 billion in 2024, as many banks are retreating from their climate commitments made in Glasgow in 2021.

This joint NGO report led by Rainforest Action Network, uses Urgewald’s Global Coal Exit List and the Global Oil & Gas Exit List, to examine commercial and investment bank financing for the fossil fuel industry.

Banking on Climate Chaos

The Money Trail…

…behind financing in Latin America and the Carrabean

Urgewald, Arayara International Institute, FARN, Conexiones Climáticas and Amazon Watch released the report ahead of the UN Climate Summit in Belém. It maps the frontiers and the financiers of fossil fuel expansion across Latin America and the Caribbean, and identifies 190 fossil fuel companies pushing for new drilling, infrastructure, and power plants.

The report comes with website which includes an interactive fossil fuel expansion monitor and a finance dashboard.

The Money Trail

Juliana Duarte

The Coal Policy Tracker

Our NGO partner Reclaim Finance publishes the Coal Policy Tool. Their tool ranks coal policies of financial institutions and uses GCEL criteria as a baseline for good coal policies.

Coal Policy Tracker

Who is Financing Fossil Fuel Expansion in Africa?

Urgewald, Stop EACOP, Oilwatch Africa, Africa Coal Network and 33 further African NGOs released the report at the UN Climate Summit in Sharm el-Sheikh in November 2022. The report identifies 200 companies that are exploring or developing new fossil fuel reserves or developing new fossil infrastructure such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, pipelines or gas- and coal-fired power plants in Africa.

Who is Financing Fossil Fuel Expansion in Africa?

Academic Research

Urgewald’s GCEL has been used as a base material in multiple articles from academia and the finance industry alike. Some of these articles underlines the efficiency of bank coal exit policies: D. Green and B. Vallee’s Measurement and effects of bank exit policies, published in October 2025 in the Journal of Financial Economics. Several publications analyse which banks are still financing coal: T. Sondershaus’s Banking on Coal, Still: Bank funding of fossil fuels around Germany’s Coal Exit; or G. Schwerhoff and M. Sy’s 2024 IMF working paper Following the Money: Who is Keeping Coal Alive?.

The usage of our data by academics shows the importance of the Global Coal Exit List for shaping knowledge on the fossil fuel industry and its financing.

Investing in Climate Chaos

At a time when the UN warns that greenhouse gas emissions must be cut in half by 2030, pension funds, insurers, mutual funds and asset managers are still gambling away our future by sinking money into the world’s worst climate offenders. According to Urgewald's research, over 7,500 institutional investors hold bonds and shares in coal, oil and gas companies from our Global Coal Exit List and our Global Oil & Gas Exit List.

Investing in Climate Chaos

The Great Green Investment Investigation

Even when financial funds claim they are sustainable, they often are not. This was an insight unearthed by the Great Green Investment Investigation that drew on data from Urgewald’s Global Coal Exit List and Global Oil & Gas Exit list. The investigation looked into 1,277 sustainable funds that referenced the environment in their name and compared them to Urgewald’s data. The result: Over 40% of these “sustainable” funds were actually invested in fossil fuel companies. The joint project was conducted by the NGO Follow the Money, the research journalists of investico, and 9 major European media outlets.

The Great Green Investment Investigation