Group’s slam Japan’s megabanks for being ‘villains of the climate crisis’

Climate advocates gathered in Manila today to confront what they called the “villains of the climate crisis” – Japanese megabanks and energy companies fueling the “unprecedented wave” of fossil fuel expansion across Asia.

Makati’s business district became the site of a symbolic protest where the activists restrained the anime-style “villains” with ropes to depict public resistance to Japan’s continued fossil fuel financing, which, they say, is accelerating climate destruction. The mobilization, organized by the Asian Peoples Movement on Debt and Development, the Asian Energy Network (AEN), together with the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ), Sanlakas and other APMDD member groups, was held in time for the Annual General Meeting of Japan’s largest megabanks MUFG, SMBC, Mizuho, and energy giant JERA.

It was part of Asia-wide actions against Japanese public and private corporations’ involvement in fossil fuel expansion in Asia. Coordinated actions were also held in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan, where peoples’ organizations called out Japan’s aggressive push for coal and gas projects in their countries, enabled by billions in financing from Japanese megabanks and public agencies.

“We are confronting the real villains of the climate crisis – Japan’s megabanks and fossil giants like JERA, which continue to fund dirty energy projects across the region. These corporations are raking in big profits while our communities suffer. They must be held accountable for their fossil fuel financing, which destroys lives, peoples’ livelihoods, and the environment,” stressed APMDD coordinator Lidy Nacpil.

“Every coal unit, every new gas pipeline and import terminal that Japan helps fund pushes our region further away from climate safety and deeper into environmental collapse. These investments are not solutions – they are accelerants of climate breakdown and severely threaten our ability to limit global warming to 1.5C,” Nacpil added. “We refuse to be locked in any partnership that will condemn our region to decades more of escalating and devastating climate impacts and deadly fossil fuel dependence. Japan’s megabanks – MUFG, SMBC, and Mizuho, including the energy giant JERA – are enabling this destruction through their massive financing of gas expansion in the Philippines and across Asia. True energy security lies in a rapid, equitable, and just transition to renewable energy systems, not in Japan’s toxic gas exports,” stated PMCJ national coordinator Ian Rivera.

The Banking on Climate Chaos 2024 report revealed that Japanese banks are among the worst fossil fuel financiers in the world. Mizuho ranked No. 2 globally for total fossil fuel financing ($37 billion in 2023) and funding companies engaged in fossil fuel expansion, committing $18.8 billion. MUFG wasn’t far behind at No. 3, lending $15.4 billion for fossil fuel expansion. Japan’s 7th Strategic Energy Plan, released in February, identified LNG as a “realistic energy source” even beyond 2050.

The plan encourages public-private cooperation for long-term fossil fuel investments and drew criticism from climate groups for reinforcing a fossil-heavy development path rather than transitioning to renewables. They said that this marks a retreat from Japan’s previous commitments to decarbonization,” which is not ambitious in the first place.”

Carrying slogans such as “Japan’s Energy Agenda: Threat to Energy Security in Asia,” APMDD and its partner-groups called on Japan’s megabanks – MUFG, Mizuho, and SMBC – as well as JERA and government institutions like JBIC and JICA, to:

1) immediately halt all new financing for fossil fuel infrastructure across Asia;

2) withdraw support for LNG, ammonia co-firing, and other false solutions;

3) redirect investments towards renewable energy like wind and solar which are “scalable, cost effective and sustainable.”

In Dhaka, Sharif Jamil of Waterkeepers Bangladesh revealed that JERA, along with SMBC and MUFG, recently invested $1 billion for the 718 MW Meghnaghat Gas Power Project. JERA and Mitsubishi Corp. are likewise working with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to fund the Moheshkhali-Matarbari Integrated Infrastructure Development Initiative (MIDI) which will put up more than 20 LNG power plants in Chattogram region.

“ All these projects undermine Bangladesh’s just renewable energy transition and further deepens our country’s financial and climate crisis. This betrayal must be stopped,” he stressed.

Meanwhile, in India, Saktiman Ghosh of the National Hawker Federation remarked:

“We barely earn enough to survive, and now banks like  Mizuho are pumping money into LNG projects that destroy our coasts and livelihoods. These terminals don’t bring energy for people like us — they bring disaster. Our markets, our seas, our jobs — all sacrificed so foreign banks can fill their pockets. We will not be silent while they trap us in this fossil fuel mess.” “We deplore the fact that Japan’s public finance institutions – METI, JBIC, and JICA – are backing the megabanks like MUFG, SMBC, and Mizuho, to fund coal mining in Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia. They also financed the Masela and Tangguh Expansion LNG project, apart from a number of other gas power plant projects. This clearly shows they prioritize fossil fuel profits only, willfully ignoring the devastating impacts to the climate and communities in our country” Sawung Rakmon, WALHI Senior Energy Finance Campaigner, remarked.