Activists across the globe call on banks and investors to stop financing TotalEnergies’ bonds

On Wednesday 2nd October, climate groups are protesting in New York, where TotalEnergies is hosting its main investors. Actions are also taking place this week at the headquarters of TotalEnergies’ investors and banks in Frankfurt and Paris. Activists are calling on investors and banks to make an immediate commitment to stop underwriting and buying new bonds issued by TotalEnergies, as well as to stop all support for companies developing new oil and gas projects.

Bonds represented more than two-thirds of TotalEnergies’ external financing in recent years. In 2024, TotalEnergies raised $7.25 billion through bonds, which the company will fully reimburse over decades.

Earlier this year some 60 NGOs called on banks and investors to stop lending to TotalEnergies, due to the energy giant’s ‘climate-wrecking strategy’. Following the letter, French banks BNP Paribas and Crédit Agricole announced that they would no longer participate in conventional bond issuances for companies in the oil and gas sector.

Climate justice movements, organisations and activists, including 350.org, Justiça Ambiental, Liveable Arlington, MilieuDefensie, Stop Total France, the Toxic Bonds Network and urgewald, are urging other financial institutions to follow suit and stop support – including participating in the issuance and purchase of new bonds – for TotalEnergies and other companies developing new oil and gas projects.

While TotalEnergies’ will be thanking its investors today in New York for their financial support that will fund the company’s oil expansion 40 years into the future, activists will remind them of what this means for the climate. They will, in particular, denounce the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) project, which TotalEnergies continues to promote despite the heavy repression faced by communities and activists opposing it. So far 27 commercial banks have publicly committed not to support the EACOP project. The project has so far been financed by equity capital from its shareholders, including TotalEnergies. Bonds are likely to be significant to the development of such projects, as they allow the company to raise large amounts of money without conditions regarding their use.

“In Uganda, community members and activists are constantly intimidated, arrested and prosecuted for defending their basic rights. Demonstrations which simply demand fair compensation, an end to displacement, and a halt to environmental destruction are met with police violence and arrests. While international banks across the globe have turned their backs on the EACOP project, they continue allowing the company to go ahead with its oil and gas projects through other financing methods such as bonds. Financiers should immediately stop distributing blank cheques to TotalEnergies.”
– Molly Ornati from 350Brooklyn.org

Protesters will also denounce the Mozambique LNG project, which has been suspended for 3 years and is currently under criticism due to reports of alleged atrocities committed by Mozambican armed forces near the project’s premises and TotalEnergies’ shale gas projects in Texas.

“The ongoing fracking operations of the French energy giant TotalEnergies’ are placing thousands of families and children at risk in the city of Arlington, around Texas, and other locations across the nation and worldwide. It’s time consumers and investors demand American banks such as Citi, JP Morgan, and Bank of America stop funding these long-term bonds that are harming the very residents in the cities where these banks are operating.”
– Ranjana Bhandari, director of Liveable Arlington in Arlington, Texas

“The TotalEnergies gas project in Cabo Delgado is associated with land grabbing, lost livelihoods and human rights violations, alongside a violent conflict. TotalEnergies is now planning to co-develop the controversial Mphanda Nkuwa mega dam in the Zambezi river. Even before construction has started, local communities are reporting intimidations and human rights violations to force them to accept the project. If the dam goes ahead, this biodiversity hotspot might suffer irreversible damage and thousands of families will lose their lands, livelihoods and futures. Financiers are ethically bound to refuse support for TotalEnergies trail of destruction across the world.”
– Anabela Lemos, from Justiça Ambiental, Mozambique

The main banks helping TotalEnergies issue these bonds include: Société Générale, Citi, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Barclays, JP Morgan, Mizuho, MUFG, Bank of America, BPCE/Natixis, SMBC and Standard Chartered

The main investors buying TotalEnergies latest bonds include: Allianz (and its subsidiary PIMCO), Deutsche Bank, BPCE/Natixis IM, Aegon, Crédit Agricole/Amundi, Robeco, Vanguard, Blackrock