The FT has noted this morning just how out of line US banks are on fossil fuel investment when compared with other banks and the fact that fossil fuels are now known to be threatening the future of life on earth (and I stress: that's a fact, not an opinion). As they note:
Overall, ... an environmental organisation – the Sierra Club – notes, the world's top 33 financiers of fossil fuels have pumped $1.9tn into the industry over the three years since the Paris climate accord was signed in late 2015. And the number was up in each of the past two years.
And add:
But the stark reality here is that the giant US banks are way behind more enlightened competitors.
According to Clean Energy Pipeline, a data provider, Japanese and European banks dominate global project and acquisition finance in renewables. Bank of Tokyo does the most by financing volume, while niche Dutch lender Triodos tops the tables by number of deals. There are no US banks in the top 20.
And no US bank has signed up to the UN Principles for Responsible Banking, launched last November, an initiative that now has 52 signatories, including China's ICBC, the world's biggest bank, as well as Barclays, Standard Chartered and BNP Paribas.
Trump's gift to Wall Street's ability to profit in the short term at cost to us all is to let US banks to carry on burning the planet. As even the FT note, next time Extinction Rebellion might need to think about who they target.
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The US administration (what they refer to as the Deep State) is no longer part of the global community.
The US has gone rogue. If it involved fixing the roof (as Donald Trump suggested was his goal on the campaign trail) that would perhaps be tolerable, but that is not what is happening at all. America is not dealing with the beam in its own eye it’s entirely focused on foreign motes that are none of its legitimate business.
This cannot end well without a change of direction.
I’ve only just noticed the rather lovely typo in your headline.
I felt the need to check it’s etymology and Google leads me straight to you as the source.
I think ‘extentiction’ could have legs. 🙂
Oops….
Chinese banks LOL…two new coal fired power stations are being built each week in China…
Teflon Don says:
“Chinese banks LOL…two new coal fired power stations are being built each week in China…”
And the US is really helping China by putting it under stress with trade tariffs and such like nonsense. And making America great with its climate change denial policies. ?
Always blame the victim, Teflon Don. Well done, man.
Yes, but who is behind Extinction Rebellion?
https://nowhere.news/index.php/2019/04/01/astroturfing-the-way-for-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/
People who have had some funding
I know Gail Bradbrook
The suggestion that there is some dark force working through her, or she is part of one is quite ludicrous
OK Richard. But what about Stuart Basden’s (one of the original organisers of XR) claim that “XR isn’t about the climate”? (See https://medium.com/@plaosmos/extinction-rebellion-isnt-about-the-climate-42a0a73d9d49) Is this true?
What? You mean it may be political? Really? Blow me….
Or, alternatively, stop being naive and appreciate that of course climate issues are always going to be political and exist because of a political system that has to change
Did you ever think it was anything else?
If so, why?
After all, how can a politics that thinks we can consume whatever we like so long as we can pay for it co-exist with the limits on consumption climate change demands?
“What? You mean it may be political? Really? Blow me….”
Michael Flanders summed up this blinkered attitude to what constitutes ‘political’ in the early sixties, in his intro to the Gnu song in ‘At the Drop of a Hat’:
“Our council, of course, is strictly non political. They’re ALL Conservative.”
Indeed…..
He was well aware of the dig he was making, of course
Of course not Richard. The Greens are a political party but correct me if I’m wrong, one of their primary goals is the protection of the Earth’s eco-system. Why didn’t Basden say “XR isn’t JUST about the climate”? No he said “XR isn’t about the climate”. That would seem to say that Climate change isn’t an issue of primary importance to this group.
With respect, I know Gail, Rupert Read and others in XR and you are straightforwardly wrong in making that claim.
Now stop wasting our time