Case Study: Banking on Climate Change 2020

By Monica Schrock

Despite widespread concern over the vulnerability of the Amazon rainforests, four companies (Andes Petroleum, GeoPark, Frontera, and Amerisur) are actively pushing to expand fossil fuel extraction deep into the western Amazon region.

In addition to the disaster that drilling in the Amazon spells for the climate and for biodiversity, much of the planned expansion directly overlaps the ancestral territory of Indigenous peoples, including some living in voluntary isolation and at risk of extinction. Despite Indigenous rights and sustainability pledges, Citi, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, and JPMorgan Chase have served as the top bankers of Amazon oil drilling.