March, 01 2023, 11:36am EDT
![Stop the Money Pipeline](https://assets.rbl.ms/32012571/origin.jpg)
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Arielle Swernoff: arielle@stopthemoneypipeline.com,
Ginny Cleaveland: ginny.cleaveland@sierraclub.org,
Coalition of 240+ Organizations to Push for Yes Votes on Climate, Indigenous Rights Shareholder Resolutions at Financial Firms
Resolutions at major North American banks and several insurers push companies to phase-out financing of fossil fuel expansion, protect Indigenous rights, and institute better climate policies
NEW YORK
A coalition of over 240 climate, justice, and multi-issue organizations announced their support of four shareholder resolutions filed at major US and Canadian banks and insurance companies this spring. The resolutions include requiring banks and insurance companies to phase out their financing of companies engaged in fossil fuel expansion, report on projects that could violate Indigenous rights, use absolute emissions rather than emissions intensity targets, disclose 2030 transition plans, and hold directors accountable at banks that are not aligned with 1.5°C pathways. The resolutions were filed by a variety of investors, including the New York City and New York State pension funds, the Sierra Club Foundation, Trillium Asset Management, As You Sow, and others.
Ahead of the companies’ annual general meetings, Stop the Money Pipeline, a coalition of over 200 organizations, is launching a ‘Shareholder Showdown’ campaign to encourage investors to vote yes on the resolutions and against failing directors. Stop the Money Pipeline is also pushing banks and insurance companies to pass policies, ahead of their AGMs, that would prohibit lending, underwriting and insuring to corporations engaged in fossil fuel expansion.
“Shareholders have immediate opportunities to hold banks accountable for their role in the climate crisis by supporting this full slate of resolutions, and by voting against corporate directors failing to manage climate risks. Major investors like BlackRock and CalPERS must support these critical votes, and if they don’t, it will reveal their abject failure to understand both the systemic risk climate change poses to their portfolios and their fiduciary duty to address it. Their clients will be watching,” said Jessye Waxman, Senior Campaign Representative in the Sierra Club’s Fossil-Free Finance campaign.
FOSSIL FUEL PHASE OUT
The fossil fuel phase-out resolutions are updated versions of resolutions filed last year at the six largest American banks and three major insurers calling for an end to financing and underwriting of fossil fuel expansion. The resolutions clarify that the request is to phase-out new fossil fuel financing and insurance coverage, rather than abruptly end client relationships, which some banks and insurers used as an excuse the previous year. Proponents believe these updates will significantly boost shareholder support.
According to an influential report released by the International Energy Agency in 2021, as well as a growing consensus of the world’s leading scientists and energy experts, in order to have a fifty percent chance of curtailing global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and limiting the worst impacts of the climate crisis, investment in new fossil fuel supply needs to cease.
Despite this clear warning, and despite public pledges to be Paris-aligned, the six largest American banks – JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs – provided nearly $500 billion in lending and underwriting to the 100 corporations most aggressively expanding fossil fuel operations since 2016. Meanwhile, US-based insurance giants Chubb, The Hartford, and Travelers are among the top insurance providers to the global oil and gas industry..
These resolutions were filed by the Sierra Club Foundation at Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Wells Fargo; by Trillium Asset Management at Bank of America; by Harrington Investments at Citigroup; by Stand.earth at Royal Bank of Canada; and by Green Century Funds at Chubb, The Hartford, and Travelers.
“Financial institutions are trying to project this image that they're good with money - but how good are you with money if you end up destroying your own house for profit? That's exactly what Wall Street is doing by financing unlimited fossil fuel expansion. People are fighting back, and now shareholders have a chance to amplify the demands of frontline communities. Curbing expansion is fiscally sound, socially responsible, and shows that they value investing in resilient communities and a just energy future." - Aditi Sen, Climate and Energy Program Director at Rainforest Action Network
"The planet is running out of time and the banks are running out of excuses--everyone from the Pope to the Secretary General of the UN have called on them finally to act with clarity and conviction to help with the planet's greatest crisis, and shareholders should demand no less,” said writer and activist Bill McKibben.
INDIGENOUS RIGHTS
The Indigenous rights resolution at Citigroup, filed by Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace calls for a report on the effectiveness of bank practices, policies, and performance indicators in respecting internationally-recognized human rights standards for Indigenous Peoples’ rights in its existing and proposed general corporate and project financing.
In recent years, Citi has provided financing for projects and companies that clearly violate Indigenous rights: they were the lead financier of the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016; provided over $5 billion to Enbridge, enabling the Line 3 and Line 5 pipelines; and helped GeoPark secure over $650 million for oil drilling in the Colombian Amazon despite a lack of consent from local Indigenous peoples and a clear history on behalf of the company of damaging Indigenous lands, health, and livelihoods.
Domini Impact Investments filed a resolution at Chubb requesting a report describing how human rights risks and impacts are evaluated and incorporated in the company’s underwriting process, specifically calling attention to the extent to which Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) is considered in the underwriting process.
“Free Prior and Informed Consent means actual meaningful engagement with all impacted Indigenous communities and obtaining actual documented consent from impacted communities, otherwise the projects do not happen. The era of these financial institutions paying lip service to Indigenous rights, human rights, and environmental justice is over it is time to truly respect the rights of Indigenous peoples,” said Matt Remle from Mazaska Talks.
"Indigenous frontline environmental defenders continue to bear the brunt of the climate crisis, all while facing severe bodily threats for their collective resistance against the industries most responsible for it. Due to pervasive oil and gas extraction, made possible by unmitigated fossil financing, communities’ livelihoods and lands remain threatened. Investors and financial institutions must uphold Indigenous rights, human rights, and climate at the forefront of its agenda," said Mary Mijares, Fossil Finance Campaigner at Amazon Watch
ABSOLUTE EMISSIONS TARGETS
A third resolution, filed by the New York City Comptroller Brad Lander and three of the New York City Retirement Systems (the New York City Employees’ Retirement System, Teachers’ Retirement System, and Board of Education Retirement System) at Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, and Royal Bank of Canada calls on the banks to disclose absolute emissions targets for 2030. Citi and Wells Fargo already report absolute emissions reductions.
These banks currently have made emissions intensity pledges, an accounting trick that would allow banks to increase their financed emissions overall while reducing the amount of emissions per dollar financed in the fossil fuel sector. In order to be Paris-aligned, emissions must decrease absolutely. These resolutions would hold banks to a science-based standard for meeting their stated climate targets.
“Experts such as the United Nations High-Level Expert Group have made it clear that for climate commitments to be taken seriously companies must use absolute emissions metrics when setting climate targets,” said Stop the Money Pipeline coalition co-director, Alec Connon, “Yet, most of the country’s largest banks have set their climate targets using far weaker carbon intensity metrics. By voting yes on these resolutions, shareholders can help end this practice of greenwashing from some of the world’s largest funders of fossil fuels.”
TRANSITION PLANS
These resolutions, filed by As You Sow at JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley, call on banks to publicly disclose their 2030 plans for transitioning their lending and investment portfolios away from fossil fuels. A transition plan could include, for example, disclosure of clients’ estimated annual reductions and how the bank plans to achieve remaining reductions. Additional actions may include client and employee incentives or disincentives; setting requirements, including loan approval guidelines, investment and underwriting priorities or prohibitions; and policies or
guidelines that otherwise restrict, limit, or condition bank business activities, among others.
DIRECTOR VOTES
Investors are encouraged to vote against the reelection of directors responsible for climate oversight at institutions that have failed to align targets and lending and underwriting policies with credible 1.5°C low/no overshoot scenarios.
Directors are responsible for oversight of strategic planning, including management of climate risks. As climate risk grows both as an economy-wide systemic risk and as a sector-specific risk for banks, board directors are failing in their fiduciary duties when companies under their oversight fail to adopt and execute comprehensive climate risk management policies. Where issuers have failed to adopt and disclose climate policies that align with 1.5°C pathways, it indicates that directors responsible for such oversight are either unwilling or unable to successfully lead the company through the decarbonization transition. Investors are encouraged to vote against such directors.
Additional members of the Stop the Money Pipeline coalition released the following statements:
“Public pensions are meant to be the longest-term investors, yet they’re doing business with the very banks financing climate chaos,” said Amy Gray, Stand.earth Climate Finance Senior Strategist. “Pension funds must live up to their fiduciary duty, and protect pensioners and climate alike, by wielding their institutional investor power for climate resolutions at banks’ shareholder meetings this Spring.”
“As communities of color are literally fighting for our lives on the frontlines of the climate crisis, U.S banks continue funding the fossil fuel industry. These banks target communities, like mine, treating us as collateral damage to corporate profiteering. This needs to stop. Our continued reliance on fossil fuels is unsustainable and damaging to our health and environment. We must shift our focus to renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and hydropower, which are cleaner, more efficient, and more sustainable in the long-term. Banks should invest in energy-efficiency measures, such as LED lighting and energy-efficient appliances, to reduce our energy consumption and carbon footprint. These steps are necessary to ensure a healthier and more sustainable future for all.” - Roishetta Ozane, Founder and CEO of the Vessel Project
"Climate change is an existential crisis that can overwhelm a person in scale and size, impossible to address. Big bank shareholders possess an enormous amount of influence on the world’s emissions. A roomful of people can impact the disastrous course we are currently on. No more lip service or empty greenwashing — we need action, now.” Tara Houska, Giniw Collective.
“Right now, people across Canada and North America are paying the costs of Royal Bank of Canada’s misguided fossil fuel financing through devastating fires and floods. Instead of greenwashing and redwashing, RBC has the opportunity to step into real leadership and end fossil fuel expansion financing at its April 5 shareholder meeting. Science and justice make it clear: for any shot at curbing the worst of climate destruction, there can be no new fossil fuel projects. We call on all shareholders – from retail investors to big pension funds – to support this resolution, and direct RBC to align its financing with its rhetoric of honoring Indigenous sovereignty and acting on the climate crisis.” - Richard Brooks, Stand.earth Climate Finance Director
“In Wells Fargo’s Indigenous People Statement it states that it “recognizes that the identities and cultures of Indigenous Peoples are inextricably linked to the lands on which they live and the natural resources, including air and water, upon which they depend”, and yet it finances projects that harm those lands and natural resources, including air and water, upon which they depend.” – Troy Horton, Extinction Rebellion Phoenix
“This shareholder season it’s crucial that investors support linked resolutions filed with banks and insurance companies: to ensure that Indigenous Peoples’ rights that are impacted by the fossil fuel industry are respected; to phase out financing and underwriting for the expansion of the fossil fuel sector; and to urge banks to align their financing with science-based emission reduction targets.” - Fran Teplitz, Executive Co-director, Green America
“At a time when financial institutions are STILL accelerating climate instability with their investments in new fossil fuel infrastructure, it is imperative that shareholders exercise their right to hold their directors accountable. In the short term, this is a moral necessity. In the long term, it is good business.” - John Seakwood, Organizer, Rivers & Mountains GreenFaith Circle
“As insurance companies fuel the climate crisis by continuing to invest in and underwrite new fossil fuel projects, shareholders are stepping up to hold the industry accountable. Insurers must adopt new policies that phase out insurance coverage for any new fossil fuel projects and align themselves with the Paris Accords. - Tom Swan, Executive Director of Connecticut Citizen Action Group (CCAG).
“Big banks must stop pumping money into an industry that is driving the climate crisis. As people around the world face extreme weather disasters, threats to public health, and systemic economic risk, institutions such as JPMorgan Chase are ignoring climate science by providing billions of dollars in financing to fossil fuel companies that continue to expand their production of oil and gas. To safeguard communities, investors, and the global economy, shareholders should insist that banks incentivize swift and deep cuts in heat-trapping emissions to limit climate change harms and facilitate a just transition to a clean energy economy,” said Kathy Mulvey, Director of the Climate Accountability Campaign at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“It is time shareholders start looking at their families and how water and air pollution will affect them versus their bottom dollar. Money can’t buy clean, pure water.At a time in the world when climate change, seasons, disasters are moving at warp speed, we need these banks, corporations, funding institutions to stop being a machine. It is all across the globe, capitalism, consumerism, it’s all just superficial. These Banking Industry leaders, or CEO’s are not doing it for the right thing. They are all trendy and say they have diversity, equity, justice and inclusion committees, making words look great on paper, but are still plowing through BIPOC communities as warp speed, as the government looks on. I ask would you poison your own grandmother, then why do it to our grandmothers?” - Dr. Crystal Cavalier - Co Founder and CEO of 7 Directions of Service.
The Stop the Money Pipeline coalition is over 160 organizations strong holding the financial backers of climate chaos accountable.
LATEST NEWS
Critics Warn Manchin-Barrasso Permitting Bill 'Is Taken Straight From Project 2025'
"You thought Project 2025 was just a threat after the election? It's actually happening *right now,*" said one climate campaigner.
Jul 26, 2024
Climate and environmental defenders on this week implored U.S. senators to block a permitting reform bill introduced this week by Sens. Joe Manchin and John Barrasso that one campaigner linked to Project 2025, a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right overhaul of the federal government.
Common Dreamsreported Monday that Manchin (I-W.Va.) and Barrasso (R-Wyo.)—respectively the chair and ranking member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee—introduced the Energy Permitting Reform Act of 2024.
The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) noted that although the proposal "includes several positive reforms for the accelerated development of transmission projects," it also advocates "limiting opportunities for communities to challenge projects, loosening oversight for drilling and mining projects, extending drilling permits and fast-tracking [liquified natural gas] permits, and several other provisions friendly to fossil fuel giants."
"This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
These are nearly identical policies to what's proposed in Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership. The plan, which was spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation, calls for "unleashing all of America's energy resources," including by ending federal restrictions on fossil fuel drilling on public lands; limiting investments in renewable energy; and rolling back environmental permitting restrictions for new oil, gas, and coal projects, including power plants.
While Manchin has been trying—and failing—to pass fossil fuel-friendly permitting reform legislation for years, Brett Hartl, director of public affairs at the Center for Biological Diversity, said that his "Frankenstein legislation is taken straight from Project 2025, and it's the biggest giveaway in decades to the fossil fuel industry."
Hartl said the bill "deprives communities of the power to defend themselves and gives that power to Big Oil by making it harder for communities to challenge polluting projects in court," and "prioritizes the profits of coal barons over public health."
"And it mandates oil and gas extraction in our oceans," he continued. "The insignificant crumbs thrown at renewable energy do nothing to address the climate emergency."
"Monday was the hottest day in recorded history," Hartl noted. "It's shocking that as the climate emergency continues to break records around us, the Senate continues to fast-track the fossil fuel expansion that is killing us. This dangerous bill doesn't deserve a floor vote."
Hartl added that "to preserve a livable planet," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) "must squash this legislation now."
Manchin—who has said this will be his last term in office—has been a steadfast supporter of the fossil fuel industry, partly because his family owns a coal company. The senator says his permitting reform bill "will advance American energy once again to bring down prices, create domestic jobs, and allow us to continue in our role as a global energy leader."
However, Allie Rosenbluth, Oil Change International's U.S. manager, warned Thursday that "this bill is yet another dangerous attempt by Sen. Manchin to line the pockets of his fossil fuel donors, sacrificing communities and our climate along the way."
"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else," she continued. "It would unleash more drilling on federal lands and waters, unnecessarily rush the review of proposed oil and gas export projects, and lift the Biden administration's pause on new LNG exports."
"We urge Congress to reject this proposal and commit to action that protects frontline communities from the impacts of fossil fuel development and the climate crisis," Rosenbluth added.
"Don't be fooled: The Energy Permitting Reform Act is another dirty deal to fast-track fossil fuels above all else."
NRDC managing director of government affairs Alexandra Adams said Wednesday that "this bill is a giveaway for the oil and gas industry that will ramp up drilling and environmental destruction at a time when we need to be putting a hard stop to fossil fuels."
"We cannot afford to roll back so many of our bedrock environmental and community legal protections and offer a blank check to the oil and gas industry," she stressed. "We need new solutions for permitting if we are going to meet our clean energy potential and address the climate challenge. But this is not it."
"This bill would altogether be a leap backward on climate, health, and justice if passed into law," Adams added. "The Senate should reject it and look toward alternative solutions already being considered."
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'Nothing To Eat': War-Torn Sudan Faces Mass Famine as Military Delays Aid
Both parties in Sudan's civil war are to blame for a looming mass famine, experts say, and the military's blocking of U.N. aid at a border crossing with Chad exacerbates the problem.
Jul 26, 2024
Sudan's military is blocking United Nations aid trucks from entering at a key border crossing, causing severe disruptions in aid in a country that experts fear may be on the brink of one of the worst famines the world has seen in decades, The New York Timesreported Friday.
The border city of Adré in eastern Chad is the main international crossing into the Darfur region of Sudan, but the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), the state's official military, which is engaged in a civil war with a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has refused to issue permits for U.N. trucks to enter there, as it's an RSF-controlled area.
U.S. and international officials have issued increasingly alarmed calls for steady aid access to help feed the millions of severely malnourished people in Darfur and other areas of Sudan.
Last week, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the United States ambassador to the U.N., said that the SAF's obstruction of the border was "completely unacceptable."
Both warring parties in Sudan continue to perpetrate brazen atrocities, including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. This piece focuses on the SAF's ongoing obstruction of essential aid. The situation is catastrophic. The policy is criminal. https://t.co/FKhqQh3EI9.
— Tom Dannenbaum (@tomdannenbaum) July 26, 2024
The Sudanese who've made it out of the country and into Adré reported dire and unsafe conditions in their home country.
"We had nothing to eat," Bahja Muhakar, a Sudenese mother of three, told the Times after she crossed into Chad, following a harrowing six-day journey from Al-Fashir, a major city in Darfur. She said the family often had to live off of one shared pancake per day.
Another mother, Dahabaya Ibet, said that her 20-month-old boy had to bear witness to his grandfather being shot and killed in front of his eyes when the family home in Darfur was attacked by gunmen late last year.
Now the mothers and their families are refugees in Adré, where 200,000 Sudanese are living in an overcrowded, under-resourced transit camp.
In addition to those that have made it out of the country, there are 11 million people internally displaced within Sudan, most of whom have become displaced since the civil war began in April 2023.
An unnamed senior American official told the Times that the looming famine in Sudan could be as bad as the 2011 famine in Somalia or even the great Ethiopian famine of the 1980s.
In April, Reutersreported that people in Sudan were eating soil and leaves to survive, and The Washington Postcalled it a nation in "chaos," reporting that World Food Program trucks had been "blocked, hijacked, attacked, looted, and detained."
In late June, a coalition of U.N. agencies, aid groups, and governments warned that 755,000 people in Sudan faced famine in the coming months.
The U.S. last week announced $203 million in additional aid to Sudan—part of a $2.1 billion pledge that world leaders made in April, which some countries have not yet delivered on.
Some officials including Thomas-Greenfield, who has dubbed the situation in Sudan "the worst humanitarian crisis in the world," have called for the U.N. Security Council to allow aid delivery into the country even in the absence of SAF approval; it's believed that Russia would veto such a measure.
Sudan's civil war has seen a great deal of international interference. Amnesty International on Thursday published an investigatory briefing showing that weapons from Russia, China, Serbia, Turkey, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had been identified in the country. And The Guardian on Friday reported that the passports of Emirati citizens had been found among wreckage in Sudan, indicating the UAE may have troops or intelligence officers on the ground, though the UAE denied the accusation.
The International Service for Human Rights on Friday warned that both the SAF and RSF were engaged in wrongful killings and arrests, especially targeted at lawyers, doctors, and activists. The group called for an immediate cease-fire.
The SAF and Sudanese government figures have cast doubt on international experts' claims about famine in the country.
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JD Vance Doubles Down on Attack on 'Childless Cat Ladies'
Vance "meant no disrespect to cats, but he did mean to demean women and still holds the view in 2024 that they should be punished for not having children."
Jul 26, 2024
After days of condemnation from critics including actress Jennifer Aniston and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Sen. JD Vance was given the opportunity on Thursday to clarify his remarks from 2021 in which he said the Democratic Party was run by "childless cat ladies."
Instead, the Ohio Republican and running mate of former President Donald Trump assured SiriusXM host Megyn Kelly on "The Megyn Kelly Show" that while he has "nothing against cats," he meant what he said in terms of "the substance" of his argument.
Vance made it clear, said Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff for Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), "that he meant no disrespect to cats, but he did mean to demean women and still holds the view in 2024 that they should be punished for not having children."
The comments in question were made by Vance to then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson when Vance was running for the Senate.
Calling out Buttigieg—who, the secretary disclosed this week, was struggling at the time to adopt a child with his husband—and Vice President Kamala Harris, a stepmother of two and the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee, Vance said people without biological children "don't really have a direct stake in" the future of the country and therefore shouldn't hold higher office.
In separate remarks that same year, Vance said parents should "have more power" at the voting booth and that "if you don't have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn't get nearly the same voice."
He also specifically categorized people who don't have children as "bad" in an interview in 2021, saying the government should "reward the things that we think are good" and "punish the things that we think are bad," with people taxed at a lower rate if they have children.
While a spokesperson for Vance told ABC News that the senator's taxation proposal was "basically no different" than the child tax credit supported by the Democratic Party, Democrats who have pushed for the credit have heralded its proven ability to slash child poverty rates and help families afford groceries, childcare, and other essentials, rather than viewing the tax savings as a way to reward people for procreating.
In his interview with Kelly on Thursday, Vance attempted to pivot away from his own comments, saying his point was to criticize "the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-child" and claiming without evidence that the Harris campaign had "come out against the child tax credit"—a signature policy of the Biden-Harris administration.
"I'm proud to stand for parents and I hope that parents out there recognize that I'm a guy who wants to fight for you," said Vance. "The Democrats, in the past five, 10 years, Megyn, they have become anti-family. It's built into their policy, it's built into the way they talk about parents and children. I don't think we should back down from it, I think we should be honest about the problem."
Vance and Kelly went on to lament the anxiety "hardcore environmentalists" and progressive lawmakers such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have expressed about the damage fossil fuel extraction is doing the planet, accusing them of pushing people to forgo having families—but said nothing about Republican policies that have made child-rearing less accessible.
In recent years, the entire Republican caucus in Congress was joined by conservative then-Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia in blocking the extension of the enhanced child tax credit, which had been credited with cutting the national child poverty rate in half. Republicans also allowed a pandemic-era universal school meal program to expire, while several Democratic-led states have passed state-level programs to ensure all children can have meals at school, regardless of their family's income.
Under Republican abortion bans, numerous stories have cropped up of pregnant people who have been forced to carry pregnancies to term despite finding out that their fetuses had fatal abnormalities and would die soon after birth—as have stories of children who were forced to give birth or had to cross state lines in order to get abortion care.
As with his position that nonparents should be "punished" for not having children, "who else does 'pro-child/family' Vance think should 'face consequences and reality' by way of curtailing choices, rights, and freedoms?" asked writer Alheli Picazo. "Women and girls who become pregnant through rape/incest."
University of North Carolina law professor Carissa Byrne Hessick said that one could test "empirically" Vance's claim that Democratic policies are anti-family.
"But I haven't heard the GOP talk much about things that would help my family and my kids," she said, "like reducing childcare and tuition costs."
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