Activists Demand World’s Worst Banker of Climate Change Stop Funding Fossil Fuels
Contact Ayse Gursoz, ayse@ran.org for photos and video.
Los Angeles –– As California’s wildfire crisis spreads, activists from Rainforest Action Network, University of California Los Angeles, CODE PINK, Avaaz, Red Earth Defense, Public Bank LA, and Extinction Rebellion Los Angeles seized an opportunity at Royce Hall of UCLA to call attention to Chase Bank CEO Jamie Dimon and his bank’s outsized role in funding fossil fuels. The event, “#Internet50,” celebrates the 50th anniversary of the internet with panels featuring leading technologists and influencers.
During CEO Jamie Dimon’s panel with Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, activists unfurled two banners calling attention to to Chase Bank’s massive financing of fossil fuels and chanted: “Jamie Dimon, the world’s on fire. Stop funding the climate crisis.”
According to data from Rainforest Action Network’s Banking on Climate Change 2019 report, since the Paris Agreement, JPMorgan Chase has provided $196 billion in finance for fossil fuels, which is nearly a third (29%) higher than the second worst bank, Wells Fargo. As the world’s biggest funder of fossil fuel and fossil fuel expansion, Chase is the world’s worst banker of climate change. Chase Bank also invests in companies that currently drill, or plan to drill for oil in the Amazon, and underwrites the major agribusiness companies doing business in Brazil that are closely tied to deforestation in the Amazon. JPMorgan Chase is also the world’s worst funder of Arctic oil and gas, Ultra-deepwater oil and gas, and the worst U.S. banker of tar sands.
“Climate change has set California on fire,” says Scott Parkin, Organizing Director at Rainforest Action Network. “The climate crisis is literally raging at our doorstep as the world’s biggest bankroller of fossil fuels talks about the future. We’re here to tell JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon that he’s responsible. We demand Chase bank defund fossil fuels and defund climate change.”
According to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, emissions must be halved within 12 years in order to limit the Earth’s temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. In order to align with the 1.5 degree target, banks must end their support for fossil fuels and cease financing further expansion of any fossil fuels and companies tied to Amazon destruction.
This morning’s action is part of a broader, growing pattern. Chase bank and Chase CEO Dimon have been hounded with the same message at many events across the country, including the bank’s AGM, various speaking engagements, and outside its headquarters. Activists are determined to continue disrupting Dimon until he takes responsibility for his role as one of the most powerful causes of our climate emergency.
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