David Tong, Global Industry campaign manager at Oil Change International and one of the authors of a new report by two dozen advocacy groups, said central banks have access to powerful tools to confront the climate crisis, but they aren’t using them.

Despite needing to “play a critical role in catalyzing the rapid shift of financial flows away from oil, fossil gas and coal,” 12 major central banks “have instead tinkered at the edges,” according to a report released last week.

The new analysis from two dozen advocacy groups including Oil Change International examines financing and policies of central banks from Canada, China, the EU, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Russia, Switzerland, the UK and U.S.

The report says that “with a few isolated exceptions — such as decisions by the French and Swiss central banks to partially exclude coal from their asset portfolios — central bank activity on carbon pollution and the climate crisis has been limited primarily to measures to increase financial market transparency.”

“While some central bank executives claim that tackling the climate crisis is beyond their mandates,” the report continues, “at the same time they have positively reinforced fossil fuel financing, and even directly financed fossil fuel production.”