The Frankfurter Rundschau (Milliarden für Uran-Minen) reports on this briefing (Was haben deutsche Banken aus Fukushima gelernt?) by Urgewald, a german association for environmental protection and human rights.
The briefing states that despite the promises made by german banks following the Fukushima desaster, to pull back from investments in Uranium firms, two years later there are still banks who chose to invest in, or lend money to, the biggest global Uranium players.
The Hypo Vereinsbank/UniCredit Bank AG and the Deutsche Bank gave €1.1 billion to Areva and Rio Tinto in the time between March 2011 and January 2013. But they are not the only ones breaking their promise to pull out of nuclear.
Four of eight banks – Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, HVB and LBBW, still support energy consortiums without really knowing where the money goes to. The beneficiaries are still allowed to have coal, oil and nuclear energy in their portfolios, something the banks say is necessary for “Transformation processes in the energy transition”.
This is an alarming trend, especially the funding of Areva and Rio Tinto by Hypo Vereinsbank and Deutsche Bank. If these global nuclear players are still good for credit, they will continue their endeavours in Uranium Mining despite the grave problems on almost every uranium exploration or mining site.
(Picture by Urgewald)