fossil fuel financing

Why I Was Arrested for Protesting Citigroup’s Funding of Climate Chaos

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Original article by SANDRA STEINGRABER republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Scientist Sandra Steingraber is arrested outside Citigroup’s New York City headquarters on June 12, 2024.
 (Photo: Alec Connon)

I am here today to say to Citi that if you won’t listen to the data of scientists, you will need to listen to the bodies of scientists blocking your doors.

Editor’s note: The following is a speech read by Sandra Steingraber before being arrested outside Citigroup’s New York City headquarters on June 12, 2024.

My name is Sandra Steingraber. I have a PhD in biology, and I’ve worked as a scientist my whole adult life.

Here are two things biologists are worried about.

The first thing is happening in the ocean. When fossil fuels are burned and CO2 fills the atmosphere, some of it falls into the sea.

When carbon dioxide touches water, it turns into carbonic acid: H2CO3.

Acid makes calcium carbonate (CaCO3) dissolve. Seashells are made of calcium carbonate. So fossil fuels are turning our oceans into pits of acid, and animals made of shells are starting to dissolve.

I did not become a biologist to write eulogies for the species I study.

All together, the babies of animals with shells are called zooplankton.

Zooplankton are the basis of the marine food chain.

If you dissolve their parents, zooplankton disappear—along with the fish who eat them.

One half of the world’s human population depends on fish for protein. The pH of the oceans is now on track to crash the world’s fish stocks. As a biologist I worry about that.

Now let’s go on land and look at bees. Bumblebees also have babies, and they need to stay cool. So adult bees beat their wings like a thousand little ceiling fans to cool the bee nursery. But they can’t keep up due to more intense heatwaves. Baby bees are dying. Populations are crashing.

Bees help plants have sex. Bees turn flowers into fruits, nuts, vegetables. One-third of the food we eat is made for us by bees. And they do it for free. It’s called an ecosystem service.

If we lose the bees, crops fail. This is how the ecological crisis becomes a human rights crisis. Biologists are worried about this

I have studied climate change since 1982. I’ve testified. I’ve sent letters to the White House. I’ve met with the science adviser. I went to the Paris climate talks. But CO2 levels just reached a new high, and Citigroup is financing the arsonists.

Citi has poured $396 billion dollars into the fossil fuel industry just since 2016.

So, I am here today to say to Citi that if you won’t listen to the data of scientists, you will need to listen to the bodies of scientists blocking your doors. Today my body is a data point. And all together, all these data points on this blockade line make a trend. The trend is that when extinction rates accelerate, scientists get louder.

My message to Citi CEO Jane Fraser: I did not become a biologist to write eulogies for the species I study. I am morally obligated to use my knowledge to defend life against extinction and oppose those who finance it.

Original article by SANDRA STEINGRABER republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Experienced climbers scale a rock face near the historic Dumbarton castle in Glasgow, releasing a banner that reads “Climate on a Cliff Edge.” One activist, dressed as a globe, symbolically looms near the edge, while another plays the bagpipes on the shores below. | Photo courtesy of Extinction Rebellion and Mark Richards
Continue ReadingWhy I Was Arrested for Protesting Citigroup’s Funding of Climate Chaos

‘Financing the Arsonists’: Scientists Arrested During Citigroup Climate Protest

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Original article by EDWARD CARVER republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Police arrest a climate protester at Citigroup’s headquarters in New York City on June 12, 2024. (Photo: Bank On Our Future/X)

“I invite you to join us, at any level of risk tolerance,” said one participant in the New York demonstration. “It feels deeply meaningful—even joyful—to be a part of this movement and to stand on the right side of history.”

Police arrested 28 people, including several scientists, protesting outside Citigroup’s headquarters in New York City on Wednesday as climate campaigners continued a series of actions targeting the bank for financing oil and gas projects.

Dozens of scientists and allies, some wearing white lab coats, marched to the bank’s entrances holding signs and banners with messages like “The Science Is Clear,” as they condemned Citigroup for financing nearly $400 billion in fossil fuel extraction in the eight years after the 2015 Paris agreement was signed.

Several scientists gave speeches before or as they were being arrested.

“I have studied climate change since 1982,” Sandra Steingraber, a biologist and retired scholar in residence at Ithaca College, said in a speech outside the Wall Street giant’s entrances. “I’ve testified. I’ve sent letters to the White House. I’ve met with the science advisor. I went to the Paris Climate talks. But carbon dioxide levels just reached a new high, and Citi here is financing the arsonists.”

Police arrested Steingraber, who, as she was being taken away in handcuffs, declared: “I’m not interested in writing eulogies for the species that I study!”

The scientists’ protest was part of a series of climate actions undertaken as part of the Summer of Heat, a program organized by Climate Defenders, Climate Organizing Hub, New York Communities for Change, Planet Over Profit, and Stop The Money Pipeline (STMP).

A total of 28 people were arrested Wednesday, including several scientists, Alec Connon, STMP co-director, told Common Dreams. Dozens of campaigners were also arrested at Citigroup’s headquarters on both Monday, in a highly-attended kickoff to the summer activism series, and Tuesday, in an orca-themed follow-up.d

During Wednesday’s protest, the scientists delivered a joint letter, published Monday by the Union of Concerned Scientists and addressed to Citigroup’s leadership, urging the bank to stop financing fossil fuel projects scientists delivered a letter addressed to Citigroup’s leadership urging the bank to stop financing fossil fuel projects.

Activist pressure on major banks has risen in recent years following revelations—notably in the annual Banking on Climate Chaos report, published by nonprofit groups—about the key role they’ve played in funding oil, gas, and coal projects. The most recent report found that the world’s 60 largest banks had provided $6.9 trillion in funding to the fossil fuel industry in the eight years after the Paris Agreement.

The pressure has had an effect on some banks: HSBC and, more recently, Barclays have declared that they would stop financing new oil and gas projects. However, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism has reported that HSBC remains involved in fossil fuel deals.

Bank loans to fossil fuel companies are used not just to continue extraction at existing sites but also to explore and develop new reserves, even though the International Energy Agency has said there can be no more such development if climate goals are to be met. Citigroup has funded more new extraction than any bank in the world, the Banking on Climate Chaos report found.

Yet in response to Monday’s action, Citigroup claimed it was part of the transition to a green economy.

“Citi respects the advocacy of climate activists, and we are supporting the transition to a low-carbon economy through our net zero commitments and our $1 trillion sustainable finance goal,” a bank spokesperson said a statement, according to media outlets. “Our approach reflects the need to transition while also continuing to meet global energy needs.”

The statement did not win over climate activists. “This is the sort of bald-faced corporate lie that could cost us our planet,” Peter Kalmus, a NASA climate scientist, wrote in a Newsweek op-ed published Wednesday.

Kalmus attended Wednesday’s protest. Standing outside Citigroup’s headquarters, he said, “We’ve written thousands and thousands of papers and they have not listened to us. They’re fools. They’re stupid. They’re being unwise. They have to start listening to scientists.”

Summer of Heat organizers have events planned throughout the summer. In the op-ed, Kalmus reached out to readers to join the effort.

“I invite you to join us, at any level of risk tolerance,” he wrote. “In my experience, and in the experience of many other climate activists I know, civil disobedience has been a very effective way to create social change. And a big change is happening: A transition from a profit-above-life, colonial-extractivist, genocidal mindset, to a loving, sharing, interconnected mindset. It feels deeply meaningful—even joyful—to be a part of this movement and to stand on the right side of history.”

Original article by EDWARD CARVER republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Continue Reading‘Financing the Arsonists’: Scientists Arrested During Citigroup Climate Protest

‘Banker of the Climate Crisis’: Lawsuit Targets ING in the Netherlands

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Original article by OLIVIA ROSANE republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

“Whether you are drilling for oil yourself, or have paid for the drill, in both cases you are contributing to and bear responsibility for the climate crisis we are currently experiencing,” one campaigner said of the suit against the Dutch banking giant.

Friends of the Earth Netherlands, which won a historic climate case against Shell in 2021, announced a new lawsuit on Friday against ING, the country’s largest bank.

The environmental group, known as Milieudefensie in Dutch, is demanding that the bank bring its climate policy in line with the Paris agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C, slash its carbon dioxide emissions by 48% of 2019 levels by 2030 and its carbon-dioxide equivalent emissions by 43%, take measures to ensure its clients are not destroying the Earth, and begin a dialogue with Milieudefensie about meeting these demands.

“The bank finances oil and gas companies, deforestation, and heavy industry, all of which add to the climate crisis,” Milieudefensie director Donald Pols said in a statement. “Whether you are drilling for oil yourself, or have paid for the drill, in both cases you are contributing to and bear responsibility for the climate crisis we are currently experiencing.”

In 2022, ING emitted at least 61 megatons of climate pollution, more than Ghana, Switzerland, or Sweden. Almost all of ING’s emissions come through the companies it invests in and does business with, and it emits more than any other bank in the Netherlands.

“He who pays the piper calls the tune. Due to ING’s financing of, e.g., oil and gas companies, ING is the banker of the climate crisis,” Pols said.

In a letter to ING, Milieudefensie outlined several steps the bank should take to reduce the climate footprint of its investments. These included requiring all clients to develop a Paris-compliant climate plan and refusing large clients that don’t develop one within a year, requiring all fossil fuel clients to stop expanding fossil fuels and develop a plan to phase them out entirely, and cutting ties with clients who refuse after one year.

“Large polluters like ING and Shell have to seriously get to work.”

In the letter, Miliedefensie said that ING had eight weeks from Friday to respond to its demands.

“If ING does not present a positive answer to Milieudefensie’s claims within the requested period of time, Milieudefensie will assume that ING is unwilling to comply with this request,” the group wrote in the letter. “Milieudefensie will in such case see no other option than to issue summons against ING with the goal of obtaining a court order instructing ING to take the aforementioned measures.”

The environmental group said that the legal argument behind its victory against Shell would also apply against ING, namely that large corporations must comply with the Paris agreement.

“Since the climate agreements in Paris, it is clear what the world needs to do: reduce the CO2 emissions to limit the warming of the Earth to 1.5°C,” the group’s attorney Roger Cox said in a statement. “This means that large polluters like ING and Shell have to seriously get to work. It is evident that they are not doing enough, and I am therefore confident that we will win this case too.”

While ING has made some progress on its internal climate goals, Mileudefensie believes it is not moving fast enough, as it plans to continue funding oil and gas projects through 2040 and has not set any goals for reducing its total emissions.

“We young people are not in charge, but companies like ING, with their fossil fuel financing, are helping to ruin our world and future,” Winnie Oussoren, a 21-year-old who chairs Young Friends of the Earth Netherlands, said in a statement.

Original article by OLIVIA ROSANE republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Continue Reading‘Banker of the Climate Crisis’: Lawsuit Targets ING in the Netherlands