May, 19 2020, 12:00am EDT
Shareholders Urge JPMorgan Chase to Reduce Climate Impacts of Financing
BERKELEY, CA
Shareholders today sent a strong message of concern to JPMorgan Chase about its outsize support of fossil fuels in the face of catastrophic climate risk. The preliminary vote came in this morning showing just under 50% of voters supported a pioneering shareholder resolution asking the U.S. banking giant to describe whether it will align its lending with the Paris goal of maintaining global warming well below 2 degrees Celsius and how it plans to do so. JPMorgan is the largest global financier of fossil fuels, having funneled more than $268.593 billion from 2016 to 2019 into companies profiting from climate change , averaging approximately $67 billion per year.
"As the world's largest funder of fossil fuels, JPMorgan Chase has a decision to make -- either recognize growing global climate risk and dramatically reduce its fossil fuel funding or continue irresponsibly driving global temperature rise to greater and more devastating impacts," said Danielle Fugere, President of As You Sow. "Shareholders today sent the message that it is past time for Chase to catch up with its peers, implement a strategy to decarbonize and de-risk its lending portfolio, and help build a more secure future for all."
The investment community has not missed the parallels between COVID-19 and the global disruption that has followed. Shareholder's significant support of this proposal underscores their position that banks are as responsible as any other company to heed the science of climate and to take early action to reduce systemic and growing risk.
Climate change presents material portfolio risks to investors. Globally, losses from climate change are estimated to be between $150 and $790 trillion by 2100. In the U.S., annual losses in some sectors are projected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars by the end of the century. A large range of shareholders are responding to the likelihood of portfolio-wide risk from climate impacts, including Climate Action 100+, a group of large asset owners and managers with a combined total of more than $40 trillion assets under management.
As You Sow withdrew similar climate-related proposals with large U.S. peer banks -- Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs -- after the banks made commitments recognizing the urgent need to find systems to measure the greenhouse gas emissions associated with their financing activities toward alignment with Paris goals. Significantly, major European peers BNP Paribas, Societe Generale, BBVA, Standard Chartered, and ING, with a combined portfolio of $2.7 trillion, committed to decrease the climate impact of their loans in alignment with Paris climate goals. Most recently, Barclays, the largest financier of fossil fuels in Europe, stated an intention to align its financing with the Paris climate agreement and set a target of net zero emissions -- a goal that promises progress.
In contrast, JPMorgan continues to face scrutiny for its reckless approach to financing climate risk. It has become one of the prime targets of a major activist campaign, "Stop the Money Pipeline," that is focused on the biggest financial supporters of the fossil fuel industry. It has also come under fire for setting up independent companies to take ownership of oil and gas assets, as fossil fuel companies struggle to respond to a decreased demand for fossil fuels. JPMorgan has promised to appoint a new lead independent director after strong concern from shareholders regarding the re-election of Lee Raymond, a former CEO of ExxonMobil, to that post. Raymond will remain on the board in a director position, which is of continued concern to investors, and recently the State Treasurers of Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin joined the Pennsylvania Treasurer, the Comptrollers of New York City and New York State, CalPERS, and other shareowners in opposing his re-election.
"It is critical that financial heavyweight JPMorgan Chase accelerate ambition to clean up its fossil fuel financing," said Fugere. "JPMorgan's inaction in the face of the staggering risks of climate change is noteworthy and unacceptable. Investors can no longer tolerate business as usual in these unprecedented times."
To learn more about As You Sow's work on climate change, click here.
As You Sow is the nation's non-profit leader in shareholder advocacy. Founded in 1992, we harness shareholder power to create lasting change that benefits people, planet, and profit. Our mission is to promote environmental and social corporate responsibility through shareholder advocacy, coalition building, and innovative legal strategies.
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Press freedom advocates on Thursday welcomed the New York Times' lawsuit over the US Department of Defense's "flatly unconstitutional" press policy, filed on the heels of the first briefing for what critics call the "Pentagon Propaganda Corps."
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The plaintiffs are asking Judge Paul L. Friedman, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, to strike down provisions of the Pentagon policy that violate their First and Fifth Amendment rights, and warn that "if allowed to stand, that policy will upend the longstanding and 'healthy adversarial tension between the government, which may seek to keep its secrets' and 'the press, which may endeavor to' report them... and will deprive the public of vital information about the United States military and its leadership."
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Charlie Stadtlander, a spokesperson for the newspaper, said in a statement that "the Times stands with fellow news organizations across digital, print, and broadcast media, including many conservative outlets, in strongly opposing this unprecedented policy."
The paper has hired a prominent First Amendment lawyer, Theodore J. Boutrous Jr. of Gibson Dunn. The Washington Post reported that "lawyers representing the Times said they discussed litigation with other news organizations but ultimately decided to proceed on their own. They said they would welcome other outlets filing their own lawsuits or amicus briefs in the Times' case."
While Parnell said in a statement that "we are aware of the New York Times lawsuit and look forward to addressing these arguments in court," journalists and media advocacy groups are already signaling support for the newspaper—which is also battling a $15 billion defamation suit refiled by the president in October.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press vice president of policy Gabe Rottman said Thursday that "the Pentagon's press access policy is unlawful because it gives government officials unchecked power over who gets a credential and who doesn't, something the First Amendment prohibits."
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The Pentagon Press Association said it was "encouraged by the New York Times' effort to step up and defend press freedom," while White House Correspondents' Association president Weijia Jiang declared that the WHCA "stands firmly" with the newspaper and described the suit as "a necessary and vital step to ensure journalists can do their jobs."
Clayton Weimers, executive director for Reporters Without Borders USA, said that "it's great to see the New York Times continue to proactively defend press freedom in the courts as well as on their pages. We all know by now that capitulation to Donald Trump's authoritarian impulses never works out, but fighting back will."
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Pointing to television companies' recent settlements with the president, Freedom of the Press Foundation executive director Trevor Timm said that "in an era where news networks seem to be caving to Trump's censorious tactics left and right, it's refreshing to see the New York Times leading by example and sticking up for the First Amendment in court."
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"These days, the government has countless platforms of its own to tell the public what it wants it to know. A free and independent press isn't needed for that," he noted. "The Constitution guarantees one anyway precisely because the public needs the information the government does not want it to know. The Pentagon's absurd access pledge has been an affront to the First Amendment since the first day they proposed it. And we look forward to a federal judge throwing it out with the trash, where it belongs."
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Typically, the US has approached drug trafficking in the region as a criminal issue, with the Coast Guard and other agencies intercepting boats suspected of carrying illegal substances, arresting those on board, and ensuring they receive due process in accordance with the Constitution.
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The White House has maintained Bradley had the authority to kill the survivors of the strike and to carry out all the other bombings of boats, even as reporting on the identities of the victims has shown the US has killed civilians including an out-of-work bus driver and a fisherman, and the family of one Colombian man killed in a strike filed a formal complaint accusing Hegseth himself of murder.
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A prominent international human rights organization is warning that the United States' plan for postwar Gaza will impose "unlawful collective imprisonment" on the Palestinian civilians who have survived two years of genocide.
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The US would construct what it called “Alternative Safe Communities” for Palestinians to live in the Israeli-controlled portion of Gaza, which is over half of the territory under the current "ceasefire" agreement.
The New York Times described these communities as "compounds" of 20,000 to 25,000 people, where Israeli officials reportedly argued they should not be allowed to leave.
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“Entry and exit would be permitted only through security screening, effectively converting these sites into overcrowded detention camps that impose severe restrictions on residents’ freedom of movement and daily life."
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