May, 13 2021, 12:00am EDT
JPMorgan Chase Sets Insufficient Emissions "Intensity" Targets For Its Dirtiest Financing
WASHINGTON
Today, JPMorgan Chase released its 2030 interim emissions "intensity" targets for its financing of oil and gas, electric power, and auto manufacturing, following the bank's October commitment to align its financing activities with the goals of the Paris Agreement. While setting sector-specific interim targets as part of a broader long-term climate strategy is critical, JPMorgan Chase exclusively setting intensity reduction targets -- greenhouse gas emissions per unit of production -- for some of its dirtiest financing is insufficient and provides the bank cover for their overall emissions to continue going up.
Since the Paris Agreement was adopted in late 2015, JPMorgan Chase has provided $317 billion in fossil fuel financing -- 33% more than any other private bank in the world. In that time, JPMorgan Chase has also been the world's largest financier of companies actively engaged in expanding fossil fuel operations. Last month, JPMorgan Chase's CEO Jamie Dimon, sought to excuse the bank's continued financing of fossil fuels in his influential annual letter to shareholders.
To align with the Paris Agreement, JPMorgan Chase should make ending expansion of fossil fuels a precondition for financing clients involved in coal, oil and gas, commit to phasing out its fossil fuel financing, on a timeline consistent with limiting climate change to 1.5degC, and end their support for projects and companies implicated in human rights abuses, including Indigenous rights abuses, such as their support of Enbridge's Line 3 pipeline in northern Minnesota.
In response, Sierra Club financial advocacy campaign manager Ben Cushing issued the following statement:
"Setting interim climate targets aimed at some of the most polluting sectors like oil and gas, electric power, and autos is a step in the right direction, but the fact that the world's largest banker of fossil fuels is not setting absolute emissions reduction goals provides cover for JPMorgan Chase to continue to support the expansion of the fossil fuel industry. Oil and gas companies' promises to reduce the emissions per barrel of oil while overall production goes up is a dangerous diversion from what really matters to addressing the climate crisis, and JPMorgan Chase is enabling that greenwashing. If JPMorgan Chase wants its 'Paris-aligned' pledge to be taken seriously, it needs to set out near-term targets for reducing its absolute emissions and put an end to its financing of fossil fuel expansion."
The Sierra Club is the most enduring and influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States. We amplify the power of our 3.8 million members and supporters to defend everyone's right to a healthy world.
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Watchdog Urges FEC to Investigate Trump Campaign Over Scheme for Legal Fees
"By not disclosing the vendors that actually provided legal services, the Trump-affiliated committees effectively blocked the public from knowing which attorneys and firms are being paid—and how much."
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A campaign finance watchdog on Wednesday filed a Federal Election Commission complaint accusing former President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign, affiliated political groups, and an accounting firm of violating U.S. law in a scheme "seemingly designed to obscure the true recipients of a noteworthy portion of Trump's legal bills."
The Washington, D.C.-based Campaign Legal Center (CLC) said that "evidence appears to show an illegal arrangement between several Trump-affiliated committees and a compliance firm named Red Curve Solutions that is designed to obscure the identities of those providing legal services and how much they are being paid."
"Voters have a right to know how the presidential campaigns and other committees supporting presidential candidates spend their money."
CLC alleges that the Trump campaign, Trump's political action committee (PAC) Save America, and three affiliated organizations "violated federal reporting requirements based on a scheme in which the committees reportedly paid over $7.2 million—described as 'reimbursement for legal' costs or expenses"—to Red Curve.
The watchdog also said that Red Curve appears to be "making or facilitating illegal contributions that violate either federal contribution limits or the prohibition on corporate contributions."
According to CLC:
Red Curve is a domestic limited liability company that offers compliance and FEC reporting services but does not appear to offer any legal services. It is managed by Bradley Crate, who also serves as the treasurer for each of the five Trump-affiliated committees concerned in this complaint, as well as over 200 other federal committees.
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Trump—who is the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee—faces 91 federal and state felony charges related to his role in the January 6 insurrection and his organization's business practices. He is currently on trial in New York for allegedly falsifying business records related to hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 election cycle. The twice-impeached former president has been open about his use of campaign donations to pay his legal costs.
The new CLC filing comes a day after the watchdog filed separate FEC complaints urging investigations into a pair of Trump-affiliated "scam PACs," which "pretend to fundraise for major candidates or issues while secretly diverting almost all of their donors' money back into fundraising or the fraudsters' own pockets."
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Florez noted that "even with the repeal of the Civil War-era ban, the state will still have a ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy that denies people access to critical care. And lawmakers continue to attack Arizonans' ability to access reproductive healthcare. Our right to control our bodies and lives is hanging on by a thread."
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The Arizona Abortion Access Act is a proposed state constitutional amendment that would prevent many limits on abortions before fetal viability and safeguard access to care after viability to protect the life or physical or mental health of the patient.
The coalition supporting the amendment, Arizona for Abortion Access, highlighted on social media that the House-approved bill "did not include the emergency clause required to stop the 1864 ban from taking effect on June 8," meaning H.B. 2677 wouldn't apply until 90 days after the end of the legislative session.
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Arizona is one of multiple states where rights advocates are promoting abortion rights ballot measures this cycle. Reproductive freedom is also dominating political races at all levels, including the presidential contest. Democratic President Joe Biden is set to face former Republican President Donald Trump in November.
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While continuing to give Israel billions of dollars in support to wage war on the Gaza Strip, the Biden administration this week has declined to join the growing global demands for an international probe into mass graves discovered at hospitals in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
Two journalists on Tuesday questioned Vedant Patel, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, about the administration's response to the hundreds of bodies found at Gaza City's al-Shifa Hospital and Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis as well as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk's call for an independent investigation.
"Would you support such an independent investigation?" Said Arikat asked during a press briefing. Patel responded, "Right now, Said, we are asking for more information... That is squarely where we are leaving the conversation."
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The spokesperson interrupted Stanage to say, "We do."
While supporting the six-month Israeli assault on Gaza that the International Court of Justice has found to be plausibly genocidal, the Biden administration is also arming Ukrainians' resistance to a Russian invasion. Brian Finucane, a senior adviser for the Crisis Group's U.S. program and a former legal adviser at the State Department, pointed to the latter.
"Somehow I don't think the U.S. State Department would defer to Russia as a credible source to investigate itself if a mass grave were discovered in Ukrainian territory it had occupied," Finucane said on social media in response to Stanage's questioning.
Meanwhile, European Union spokesperson Peter Stano made clear Tuesday that the E.U. supports an independent probe.
"This is something that forces us to call for an independent investigation of all the suspicions and all the circumstances, because indeed it creates the impression that there might have been violations of international human rights committed," Stano said. "That's why it's important to have independent investigation and to ensure accountability."
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