UK Overseas Carbon Bombs

Carbon Bombs are fossil fuel projects that could emit more than a gigaton of CO2 over their lifetime.

The tables below show the results of our research: UK-based actors, fossil fuel companies and banks, are involved in at least 117 Carbon Bomb projects in 28 countries representing more than 420 Gt potential CO2 emissions. This includes emissions from active and planned extraction projects.

In 2024, the current budget for a likelihood of 50% to stay under 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) is 200 Gt CO2. The Carbon Bombs listed here would take us far over this budget; making our chances to stay under 1.5 °C improbable.

See The Guardian article that this research was featured in here.

The financial data includes all loan, bond and share issuance financing between 2016 and 2023. Even if the financial contract has ended since then, banks are listed as financiers of carbon bomb companies as they were implicated in the mentioned period.

If you would like to see a detailed breakdown of how much the UK actors finance companies operating Carbon Bomb projects, see this spreadsheet.

Find the methodology and more details here.

UK Banks and Companies involved in Carbon Bombs

Bank/Company Name	Total Financing (million USD)	Number of Countries	Number of Carbon Bombs	Potential Emissions (Gt CO2)
UK banks
HSBC	44,789.66	27	104	392.1
Standard Chartered	11,554.96	24	75	313.3
Barclays	42,376.76	22	62	225.1
Lloyds Banking Group	1,523.22	13	26	107.9
NatWest	2,326.57	11	20	61.0
Newline Corporate Name Ltd	36.15	1	1	26.7
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development	138.06	1	2	12.4
Peel Hunt	16.19	1	1	2.8
ETX Capital	0.71	1	1	1.4
Total	103,762.28	28	117	422.9
UK companies
Shell PLC	-	7	8	26.9
BP PLC	-	4	4	23.7
Evraz PLC	-	1	1	2.4
GCM Resources PLC	-	1	1	1.4
Total	-	12	14	54.5

Carbon Bombs Supported by UK Actors