'Radical Agents of Physical and Social Chaos': Campaigners Target Big Banks Over Destructive Fossil Fuel Projects
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Environmental campaigners this week are pressuring a pair of big banks to stop pouring billions of dollars per year into destructive fossil fuel projects that drive the global climate crisis.
“Bankers are acting as radical agents of physical and social chaos; it’s time for them to pull back and pay attention to science and society.”
—Bill McKibben, 350.org
A coalition of more than 100 groups sent a letter (pdf) to Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan on Tuesday urging him “to refrain from any further financing of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) and to urge other financiers to do the same.”
If completed, the ACP would carry fracked gas 600 miles across West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina. The pipeline is about two years behind schedule and $2 billion over budget, per an investor report released last month by Friends of the Earth and Oil Change International, which both signed the letter.
“As lead arranger and bookrunner for a loan to Atlantic Coast Pipeline, LLC, and especially as a multinational corporation that calls North Carolina home,” the letter states, “Bank of America has a special responsibility to drop its support for this reckless project.
The letter warns that “the ACP is economically and environmentally irresponsible; raises serious environmental justice, human rights, and climate crisis concerns; and does not build long-term shareholder value for its investors.” It also faces several legal and regulatory hurdles.
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