New Report Takes Aim at Five Banking Institutions Backing Amazon Rainforest Exploitation

Five financial firms are funding the oil extraction business in the Amazon rainforest despite promising to act to mitigate the climate crisis. (Photo: Catedral Verde - Floresta Amazonica/Wikimedia)

New Report Takes Aim at Five Banking Institutions Backing Amazon Rainforest Exploitation

"Five of the world's most powerful financial institutions are actively contributing to climate change by providing debt and equity financing for crude oil extraction projects in the Amazon."

A new report from the group Amazon Watch shows how five of the world's largest financial institutions are funding the exploitation of the Amazon Rainforest for oil--even as those firms claim to be on the side of mitigating the climate crisis.

"Five of the world's most powerful financial institutions are actively contributing to climate change by providing debt and equity financing for crude oil extraction projects in the Amazon," reads the report.

The five banks--Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, and BlackRock--"have made available tens of billions of dollars for oil companies operating in the Amazon, including GeoPark, Amerisur, Frontera, and Andes Petroleum," according to the report.

The five firms have enjoyed good press recently for their stated commitment to curbing the climate crisis and making investment choices around saving the planet.

But, Amazon Watch said in an accompanying multimedia toolkit, the firms are instead "pouring money into crude oil extraction in the western Amazon, despite explicit opposition from indigenous groups on the ground and the worsening of the climate crisis that such activity promotes."

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