HOT CLIMATE ACTIVISTS THE BANK BUSTERS
ON A SLATE-GRAY AFTERNOON in January, almost 150 protesters marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., carrying bullhorns, banners, and signs reading “No New Fossil Fuels!” The protesters, Jane Fonda among them, headed for a gleaming new branch office of JPMorgan Chase. The police eventually arrested dozens in what was the latest act of civil disobedience meant to draw attention to Chase’s role as the world’s leading financier for fossil-fuel investments.
In the past four years, Chase has provided nearly $270 billion for fossil-fuel projects. Not far behind are Wells Fargo ($198 billion), Citi ($188 billion), Bank of America ($157 billion), and Royal Bank of Canada ($141 billion). Environmentalists, indigenous-rights groups, and banking watchdogs have taken an all-of-theabove strategy with these banks — mobilizing grassroots protests, publishing reports that get covered in the financial press, and pressuring shareholders, regulators, and lawmakers to get banks out of the fossil-fuel business. If the ExxonMobils and Shells of the world won’t phase out oil, coal, and natural gas in favor of clean energy, the thinking goes, maybe the banks that finance dirty energy can be persuaded to stop.
The strategy is paying dividends. Larry Fink, chairman and CEO of BlackRock, told investors BlackRock would no longer hold shares in companies that get 25 percent or more of their revenues from thermal coal. After Goldman Sachs announced it would no longer finance Arctic oil drilling, Chase followed suit. “We’ve won a lot of battles, but we haven’t won the war yet,” says Paddy McCully, the Rainforest Action Network’s climate and energy program director. “That’s to get these banks out of fossil fuels completely.” ANDY KROLL