MAY 2021Banks in this digest 👉 Barclays Deutsche Bank FMO HSBC
JPMorgan Chase MUFG SMBC Standard Bank Standard CharteredDear Anthony,
Welcome to BankTrack’s May news digest. It has, of course, been a
momentous month for the oil and gas industry. First, the IEA’s Net Zero
scenario reinforced what civil society groups, based on rigorous
research, have been saying for years - there is no room for new oil and
gas if we’re going to head off a climate catastrophe. For banks,
financing fossil fuel expansion has now become indefensible.
Then May 26th - the day Shell was hit by a court ruling ordering it to
reduce its emissions by 45% before 2030, and Chevron and Exxon were
brought to heel by activist investors - maybe one of the worsts day in
Big Oil’s history, and a day in which the Paris goals felt tangibly closer.
At BankTrack, following months of preparation, we launched our new
Fossil Banks No Thanks platform on May 17th. The campaign platform
brings together organisations and campaigns from all over the world to
present the global resistance to bank financing for fossil fuels. The
platform already features 33 groups and campaigns actively working to
stop bank finance for fossil fuels, and 85 groups from 27 different
countries showing their support for our Global Call on Banks.
May also saw several bank shareholder meetings (AGMs) at which activist
shareholders including BankTrack raised questions about banks’ fossil fuel
financing and human rights practices. To highlight two examples, at the
start of the month, Barclays faced a shareholder resolution on fossil fuel
finance and questions from us on its support for illegal settlements; and
at the end of the month Standard Bank faced a barrage of questions on
fossil fuels in general and the East African Crude Oil Pipeline in particular,
while protesters gathered in front of the bank’s headquarters and elsewhere.
Also this month, BankTrack and 23 other organisations sent an open letter to
55 banks globally, calling on the banks to take concrete action to help protect
biodiversity and safeguard the rights of Indigenous and local communities
ahead of the UN Biodiversity Conference in Kunming in October.
Finally on 27th May, BankTrack together with Justice for Myanmar published
new research exposing nine international banks that hold shares worth over
US$24 billion across 18 companies affiliated with the military junta and its
conglomerates in Myanmar.
With best wishes,
The BankTrack Team.
https://www.banktrack.org/article/banks_called_upon_to_take_action_to_protect_biodiversity_ahead_of_un_biodiversity_conference_in_kunming