By Ayse Gürsöz

Don’t you think it’s wrong for banks to profit off climate change and human rights abuses?

We followed the money and found that between 2014-2016, big banks around the world poured a whopping $290 billion into extreme fossil fuel companies and failed to respect human rights.

We also found that JPMorgan Chase is once again the top US funder of extreme fossil fuels, including tar sands, and tar sands pipelines–and the bank is showing no signs of slowing down.

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That’s why this September, we launched a campaign targeting JPMorgan Chase, and we won’t quit until they defund tar sands for good.

Needless to say, it’s already been a busy few months and I’m excited to share what we’ve been up to as we get ready for 2018.

SEPTEMBER

Our September kick-off immediately turned the heat up on JPMorgan Chase. We knew that CEO Jamie Dimon was planning a visit to Denver, and so we coordinated with a coalition of local allies to put him on notice right outside Chase’s corporate office with the message that we won’t allow Chase to finance extreme fossil fuels any longer.

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The day didn’t end there. We followed the action with a surprise visit to a gala that Jamie Dimon was speaking at, to directly confront him about his banks’ investments in dirty energy. We made sure Jamie Dimon got this letter in his hand.

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OCTOBER

Following our visit to Denver, we launched an email action, aimed at Jamie Dimon, demanding yet again that JPMorgan Chase protect Indigenous rights and our climate by defunding tar sands and tar sands pipelines. Supporters like you blasted over 23,000 emails into his inbox, urging Chase to get out of this disastrous financing.


NOVEMBER

November we took it up a notch with a banner drop right outside of their national headquarters in New York City. Over 200,000 of you joined us for the livestream!

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Photo Credit NY Daily News 

JPMorgan Chase, no surprise, is currently bankrolling all THREE proposed tar sands pipelines (Line 3, Trans Mountain and KXL). We launched a petition calling on Chase to end financing for TransCanada, the company behind Keystone XL, as their credit renewal was fast approaching (December 15th 2017). In the three weeks that we’ve had the petition out, we’ve gathered OVER 44,000 signatures!


DECEMBER

We decided to go above and beyond and hand deliver the petition to Jamie Dimon, so we crashed his keynote speech at the Wells Fargo Thought Leadership Forum, an exclusive event for over 1,000 of the world’s largest investors. Dimon’s security heavies prevented us from giving him the petition, but he heard us loud and clear!

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This past week, we launched a national call-in day of action against Chase, reiterating our demands to end funding to TransCanada and defund tar sands for good. We had over 3,000 supporters call in to both Jamie Dimon’s personal assistant and Chase’s customer service line and over 45,000 people have signed the petition to JPMorgan Chase demanding the bank stop funding TransCanada.

JPMorgan Chase is in hot water, and together, we’re turning up the heat. It’s up to us to hold banks accountable to defund tar sands and defund extreme fossil fuels!

We couldn’t do this work without you and our amazing partners like: Dakota Rural Action, Earth Guardians, Honor The Earth, Indigenous Climate Action, Indigenous Environmental Network, Last Real Indians, Mazaska Talks, Native Organizers Alliance, Northern Plains Resources Council, Ponca Nation of Oklahoma, Save RGV from LNG, Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion, Tsleil Waututh Nation, Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, BankTrack, Bold Alliance, Credo, DivestInvest, Friends of the Earth France, Greenpeace, MN350, Oil Change International, Sierra Club, Urgewald, West Coast Environmental Law Association, Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network, 350 Colorado, and 350 Seattle.