Above Photo: From Ran.org
Activists Disrupt Jamie Dimon Speech And Hand Deliver IPCC Report to Send Message that Chase Must Stop Banking on Fossil Fuels
Photos available here and video available here.
Columbus, OH–This morning activists disrupted JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon’s speech at an Axios.com event, calling attention to the bank’s funding of fossil fuels, carbon pollution, and Indigenous rights violations. The activists handed Dimon a copy of the latest UN scientist report on climate change.
This action is part of a broader, growing pattern. Dimon has 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 bird dogging him until he takes responsibility for his role as one of the most powerful funders of climate change.
“We want Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, to hear us loud and clear: Step up and stop funding climate disaster” said Ruth Breech, Senior Climate and Energy Organizer at Rainforest Action Network. “Extreme fossil fuels like coal and tar sands, and mega-pipelines, are incompatible with a stable climate and violate Indigenous rights.”
JPMorgan Chase is the top US funder of extreme fossil fuels, which include tar sands, Arctic oil, coal, and liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. Its role in funding tar sands is particularly egregious. From the start of 2014 to the end of September 2017, JPMorgan Chase pumped $8.4 billion into the largest tar sands extraction and pipeline companies such as Cenovus, Canadian Natural Resources, TransCanada and Kinder Morgan. This is more than twice the tar sands funding of any other US bank.
“JPMorgan Chase’s supposed commitment to a sustainable and prosperous future does not hold water as long as they continue to finance dirty fossil fuel projects and refugee detention centers,” said Cheryl Johncox, organizer for the Sierra Club’s Beyond Dirty Fuels Campaign.
JPMorgan Chase was one of the lead banks that just renewed a credit line of nearly $2 billion with Enbridge, the company behind the controversial Line 3 pipeline, which directly threatens Indigenous rights and culture. The opposition of three Ojibwe nations in Minnesota whose lands would be crossed by the pipeline demonstrates that Enbridge’s Line 3 project violates the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent for impacted Indigenous peoples – a principle recognized by the United Nations and in Chase’s own policies
“Our environment is the most valuable resource we have, it’s time for Chase to recognize that there is no future if they keep investing in fossil fuels,” said Becca Pollard, Keep Wayne Wild Board Member.