Divestment

New York City Sues Oil Companies Over Climate Change

January 12, 2018 Nicholas Kusnetz, Insideclimatenews.org Resist! Climate Change, Divestment, Lawsuit, New York City (NYC), Oil

New York City is suing five of the largest oil companies over the billions of dollars it spends protecting the city from the effects of climate change, and it plans to divest its pension funds' $5 billion in assets involving fossil fuel producers, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday. As head of the nation's largest city, de Blasio is throwing significant weight behind a movement by local governments to directly target fossil fuel companies for the role their products play in fueling global warming. "They are the first ones responsible for this crisis, and they should not get away with it anymore," de Blasio said at a news conference held in a building that flooded when Hurricane Sandy hit the city in 2012. "It's time for them to start paying for the damage they've done."

Declaration On Climate Finance

December 11, 2017 Staff, notapennymore.info Create! Clean Energy, Divestment, Finance, Fossil Fuels

We the undersigned, call for an immediate end to investments in new fossil fuel production and infrastructure, and encourage a dramatic increase in investments in renewable energy. We are issuing this call to action in the lead up to the climate summit hosted by President Macron in Paris this December. President Macron and other world leaders, have already spoken out about the need for an increase in finance for climate solutions, but they have remained largely silent about the other, dirtier side of the equation: the ongoing finance of new coal, oil and gas production and infrastructure. Ongoing global climate change and environmental destructions are happening at an unprecedented scale, and it will take unprecedented actions to limit the worst consequences of our dependence on oil, coal, and gas. Equally as critical as drastically curbing the carbon intensity of our economic systems is the need for immediate and ambitious actions to stop exploration and expansion of fossil fuel projects and manage the decline of existing production in line with what is necessary to achieve the Paris climate goals.

BlackRock Wields Its $6 Trillion Club To Combat Climate Risks

December 11, 2017 Emily Chasan, bloomberg.com Educate! Activism, Banks, Climate Change, Divestment

BlackRock, along with investors such as UBS Asset Management and JPMorgan Chase & Co., is a participant in the task force led by Bloomberg LP founder Michael Bloomberg. The group concluded in June that companies affected by climate change should conduct scenario analyses and include those results in their financial reports. BlackRock sees this framework as “a means to achieve the comparability and consistency of reporting that is important to us as investors,” it said in the letter. The move is the latest by BlackRock on climate change after casting its first votes this year in favor of shareholder proposals asking companies such as Occidental Petroleum Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. to provide more detail on the topic. Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink said in his annual letter to CEOs earlier this year that the New York-based firm would not be “infinitely patient” with companies on environmental and social issues that carry long-term risks.

Divest Black Friday

November 22, 2017 Staff, mazaskatalks.org Resist! Black Friday, Divestment, Pipelines

By Staff of Mazaska Talks - Keystone I just leaked 210,000 gallons of oil on the Sisseton Wahpeton Reservation; Nebraska just approved Keystone XL; First Nations in British Columbia are building tiny houses in the pathway of Trans Mountain; and Enbridge has loaded the state of Minnesota with pipe, even though Minnesota hasn’t approved Line 3 yet. Hundreds of indigenous people have formed camps and occupations of spaces in the paths of these pipelines, with dozens of arrests already. Treaties are remarked as Supreme law of the land in Article 6 of the U.S. Constitution, yet law enforcement is protecting and serving oil corporations instead of the constitution. Wall Street clearly hasn’t learned their lesson from the #NoDAPL movement, as they continue to finance these repressive corporations. So, we’re getting together this Takesgiving to remind them...

Wells Fargo Blockaded, Demanding Divestment From Tar Sands

November 14, 2017 Alex Cohen, www.PopularResistance.org Resist! Blockade, Divestment, Indigenous Peoples, Tar Sands, Wells Fargo

By Alex Cohen, for Earth Defense Coalition. On November 14, 2017, five water protectors took action in solidarity with front line Indigenous resistance efforts at Camp Makwa to stop the construction of the Enbridge Line 3 tar sands pipeline in Minnesota. The activists locked down to each other and used their bodies to disrupt business as usual at Wells Fargo, one of the major financial players behind this genocidal, extractive fossil fuel project. Wells Fargo has 743 million invested into Enbridge who is responsible for Tar Sands and the Line 3 pipeline threatening and ravaging through Indigenous lands, water, wild rice, and sovereignty in Minnesota. This action is one of hundreds taking place across the globe to call for divestment from financial institutions invested in the destructive fossil fuel industry.

Divest From The War Machine

October 25, 2017 Annie Windholz, www.medium.com Educate! Divestment, Wars and Militarism

By Annie Windholz for Medium - Jodie Evans spoke about how war has become normalized to millennials- an entire generation that has only known war. She commented that under Obama the anti-war movement was a silenced movement, but is becoming alive again during trump, with 65% of tax dollars going to war and the military. Evans was excited about the divest campaign because the anti-war movement had not yet had such a long term plan for ending war. Her question for the audience was, how do we make the movement relational? The Divest from War campaign organizer, Haley Pedersen, took the floor explaining that 23 cents of every tax dollar goes into military contractors’ pockets, with top producer Lockheed Martin’s CEO making $19 million in 2016. During this same year 150,000 people died in violent conflicts around the world as a direct result of these weapons with 90% of those killed in wars being mostly women and children civilians, and an additional 65 million people displaced because of war. Military contractors make endless profits at the expense of endless suffering with their CEOs routinely making the top paid CEOs list. Pederson said CODEPINK is currently working with different partners in divestment.

Native American Women Going After Europe’s Banks To Divest From Oil

October 24, 2017 Shannan Stoll, www.nationofchange.org Resist! Banks, Divestment, Europe, Indigenous Women, Oil & Gas

By Shannan Stoll for The Nation - Last December, calls to defund the Dakota Access pipeline and “Stand with Standing Rock” led individuals to divest millions of dollars from banks extending credit to that project. As cities and tribes got involved, that amount increased to now more than $4 billion. Seattle was the first, then more cities followed, and the movement to defund Big Oil is still growing. In May, Indigenous leaders launched a new campaign, the Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion, targeting four proposed tar sands pipelines. The strategy is to stop banks’ financial commitment before ground is broken. One of these projects – TransCanada’s Energy East Pipeline – was terminated earlier this month. Now, the movement that began at Standing Rock has gone global, since much of the DAPL funding came from overseas banks. Some European banks such as BNP Paribas have taken steps to stop funding fossil fuel projects that trample Native peoples’ rights. Others such as Norway’s DNB and ING have done some divesting. Last week, a delegation of Indigenous women returned from a trip to Europe where they met with leaders of financial institutions in Norway, Switzerland, and Germany, the “home bases for several of the world’s largest financial and insurance institutions supporting dangerous extraction developments,” according to the delegation’s news release.

Santa Barbara Votes To Divest From Banks Funding Dakota Access Pipeline

September 25, 2017 Grace Feldmann and Emiliano Campobello, www.lastrealindians.com Resist! Banks, Dakota Access Pipeline, Divestment, Pipelines

By Grace Feldmann and Emiliano Campobello for Last Real Indians - SANTA BARBARA, California / village of Syuxtun—9/19/17, Santa Barbara City Council voted to proceed toward divesting over $40 million from banks funding the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) starting with divestment of $6.25 million. This includes the early sale of $2.25 million in investments with Wells Fargo & Goldman Sachs. Also, a $4 million note with Union Bank is maturing and will be reinvested according to ethical investment goals, to the extent that such investments achieve “substantially equivalent safety, liquidity and yield” compared to traditional investments. These decisions come after a year of public pressure by the Santa Barbara Standing Rock Coalition (SBSRC), Chumash tribes, and allied groups. The City Council decided it is in the city’s best interest to encourage social responsibility goals rather than align with companies that disrespect indigenous treaties, commit human rights abuses, and destroy the environment. The policy specifically discourages investments in entities that “manufacture, distribute or provide financing to industries such as tobacco products, weapons, military systems, nuclear power, and fossil fuels,” and encourages companies that “support community well being through safe, environmentally sound practices, and fair labor practices.”

Entire Cities Are Cutting Ties With Wells Fargo For Its Support Of Dakota Pipeline

June 14, 2017 Ilana Novick, www.alternet.org Resist! Banks, Dakota Pipeline, Divestment, Wells Fargo

By Ilana Novick for AlterNet - Conservatives have long had a monopoly on the love of states' rights and local government, but in Trump's America, it's the left that has seized the opportunities of what Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis called "laboratories of democracy." Even as the Dakota Access Pipeline inches toward completion, multiple cities including Seattle, San Francisco, Albuquerque, Raleigh, and Philadelphia have spoken with their wallets, severing ties with the oil pipeline-funding banks—in particular, Wells Fargo. On May 31, New York City became the latest city to join the effort, when Mayor Bill de Blasio and comptroller Scott Stringer announced that they will vote to stop New York City from entering into new contracts with Wells Fargo and strip the bank of its role as book-running manager for NYC's General Obligation and Transitional Finance Authority bond sales. Seattle was at the forefront of the movement back in February, when a coalition of activists convinced the city council to pass an ordinance that, as the Nation explained, "would effectively bar the local government from doing business with or investing in Wells Fargo in the future.

Amid Divestment Protests, More Cities Explore Public Banks

June 7, 2017 Oscar Perry Abello, www.billmoyers.com Create! Divestment, New Economy, Protests, Public Banks

By Oscar Perry Abello for Moyers and Company - Philadelphia City Council Member Cindy Bass was already thinking about how to cut the city’s ties with Wells Fargo when bank CEO John Stumpf testified last September before the US Senate. Questioning Stumpf about the bank’s fraudulent accounts scandal, Sen. Elizabeth Warren said, “So you haven’t resigned, you haven’t returned a single nickel of your personal earnings, you haven’t fired a single senior executive. Instead, your definition of accountable is to push the blame to your low-level employees who don’t have the money for a fancy PR firm to defend themselves.” Search the US Department of Justice website for “Wells Fargo” and “settlement” and you’ll get a litany of results: a $25 billion settlement for foreclosure abuse (a record), $1.2 billion for improper mortgage lending practices, and $184.3 million in compensation for steering black and Latino borrowers into predatory subprime mortgages. The 2016 hearing was the moment when the wheels fell off the stagecoach. Stumpf finally stepped down, about a month later, but he never returned a nickel of his pay. In fact, he left with a $133.1 million severance package. “Their lackluster responses, it was so outrageous, they just didn’t get it,” says Bass. “As a city, how could we be in bed with this company?

New York City Begins Divestment From Wells Fargo

June 5, 2017 Wakíƞyaƞ Waánataƞ, www.lastrealindians.com Resist! Divestment, New York City (NYC), Wells Fargo

By Wakíƞyaƞ Waánataƞ (Matt Remle- Lakota) for Last Real Indians - NEW YORK — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Comptroller Scott M. Stringer jointly announced today that they will vote to prohibit New York City from entering into new contracts for deposits with Wells Fargo, as well as suspend the bank’s role as a senior book-running manager for NYC General Obligation and Transactional Finance Authority bond sales. The New York City Banking Commission, which is scheduled to meet today, and of which the Mayor and the Comptroller are members, approves and oversees the banks that hold City deposits. Currently, Wells Fargo holds contracts with the City to provide banking services, including to operate “Lock Box” services that hold taxes and fees collected by the City. There is approximately $227 million of City dollars held in Wells Fargo accounts currently. Additionally, Wells Fargo acts as a trustee to the New York City Retiree Health Benefits Trust, which has current assets of approximately $2.6 billion. Recently, Wells Fargo received a Federal Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) rating of “needs improvement.” The ban will be revisited only when the bank’s rating is raised.

U.S. Bank Becomes First Major Bank To Stop Financing Pipeline Construction

May 27, 2017 Staff of 350.org, www.ecowatch.com Create! Banks, Divestment, Pipelines

By Staff of 350.org for Eco Watch - U.S. Bank has become the first major bank in the U.S. to formally exclude gas and oil pipelines from their project financing. This groundbreaking change to their Environmental Responsibility Policy was publicly announced at the annual shareholders meeting in Nashville in April. In addition to no longer providing "project financing for the construction of oil or natural gas pipelines," the bank has stated that relationships with their clients in the oil and gas industries will be subject to "enhanced due diligence processes." As recently as March 2017, U.S. Bank has renewed commitments with Energy Transfer Partners, the company constructing the Dakota Access Pipeline, and with Enbridge Energy, whose pipelines operate within Minnesota. However, advocates are hopeful that the bank's newly released policy will limit other kinds of financing relationships with these industries. "U.S. Bank's new policy is an important step in protecting the environment and moving towards a fossil free future," said Wichahpi Otto, a volunteer with the climate justice group MN350, who travelled to Nashville for the shareholders meeting.

How To Contact 17 Banks Funding Tar Sands Pipeline Expansion (Including Keystone XL)

May 16, 2017 James Trimarco, www.yesmagazine.org Resist! Banks, Divestment, Pipelines

By James Trimarco for Yes! Magazine - Of the more than 60 banks helping to finance the expansion of tar sands infrastructure, the indigenous-led environmental campaign Mazaska Talks has identified 17 as worst offenders. These banks have either financed all four currently proposed tar sands pipelines or they’ve headed up major multi-bank loans to the companies building them. The proposed pipelines are the Keystone XL, Energy East, Trans Mountain, and Enbridge’s Line 3. All four begin in the tar sands of Alberta, Canada. “Our thought is to be proactive and stop the construction of Keystone now.” Back in November 2015, then-President Barack Obama rejected TransCanada’s application to build the Keystone XL pipeline, saying it would create only a few dozen permanent jobs, would have no significant effect on U.S. energy security, and would damage America’s leadership role on climate change. President Donald Trump reversed that decision in March. The indigenous-led Mazaska Talks campaign to stop the tar sands expansion is focusing on the financing of the pipelines.

US Bank To Stop Funding Pipelines As Divestment Movement Expands Worldwide

May 16, 2017 Nika Knight, www.commondreams.org Resist! Banks, Divestment, Pipelines

By Nika Knight for Common Dreams - As a nearly ten-days-long global mobilization calling for divestment from fossil fuels comes to an end, climate campaigners are celebrating a major victory stateside: U.S. Bank has announced that it will no longer finance fossil fuel pipeline construction. "Move to a green economy and a future that does not profit off the destruction of Mother Earth and our communities." —Tara Houska, Honor the EarthThe announcement came during the company's April shareholder meeting, reported MN350, a state arm of international climate justice group 350.org, on Monday. As a result of the new policy, MN350 observes that the bank will no longer provide "project financing for the construction of oil or natural gas pipelines," and will also apply "enhanced due diligence processes" to oil and gas industry clients. "U.S. Bank's new policy is an important step in protecting the environment and moving towards a fossil free future," said Wichahpi Otto, a MN350 volunteer, who attended the shareholder meeting in Nashville. "We applaud them for responding to the community and contributing to worldwide efforts to address climate change."

UCSB Chancellor Backs Call To Divest From Fossil Fuel Companies

May 13, 2017 Staff, www.pacbiztimes.com Resist! Divestment, Fossil Fuels, University of California

By Staff for Pacific Coast Business Times - After a four-day sit-in, UC Santa Barbara students won the endorsement of Chancellor Henry Yang on the divestiture of the University of California’s $2.8 billion in its endowment from fossil fuel companies. Margaret Klawunn, vice president of student affairs, delivered the statement May 11 on behalf of the chancellor at Cheadle Hall, where around 400 students, faculty and staff took part in the sit-in. “In the coming week, I look forward to working with my fellow chancellors in support of a thorough and transparent discussion on divestment from fossil fuels as part of the UC’s approach to combating the climate crisis,” Yang’s statement said. Investments should instead go toward more sustainable companies, said Cassie Macy, a spokeswoman for the student group Fossil Free UCSB that organized the protest. The first step is to get out of fossil fuels, Macy said, but “we’ve shown them that investments in sustainable companies have almost no difference in financial results. So we think that it’s very important that we invest in these companies that will better our future.” The effects of climate change affect marginalized communities most strongly, said fellow spokeswoman Celeste Argueta, including air quality and coastal erosion.

«1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 »

assetto corsa mods

Daily movement news and resources