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'Laggards': Top 6 Wall Street Banks Failing on Net-Zero Climate Pledges
"Wall Street banks need to walk the walk, and their regulators, clients, and shareholders need to do more to hold them accountable."
Oct 09, 2024
Sierra Club on Wednesday issued a report showing that the United States' six largest banks lag behind in efforts to meet 2030 and 2050 climate emissions targets they've set, as they continue to pour billions of dollars into fossil fuel financing every year.
The 29-page report, Leaders or Laggards: Analyzing Major U.S. Banks' Net-Zero Commitments, assesses the progress of JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley on efforts to meet 2030 targets, exclusion policies, and climate disclosure policies—the overall aim is to track their progress toward net-zero across their portfolios by 2050, which each has pledged to do.
"The role of major banks is critical for ensuring a sustainable and prosperous future," Ben Cushing, director of the Sierra Club's Fossil-Free Finance campaign, said in a statement.
"We cannot solve the climate crisis if they continue with business as usual," he added. "While the largest U.S. banks have committed to reaching net-zero emissions by 2050, they are evidently not yet on track to make it happen."
"Wall Street banks need to walk the walk, and their regulators, clients, and shareholders need to do more to hold them accountable," he concluded.
Major US banks @Chase @BankofAmerica @Citi @WellsFargo @GoldmanSachs @MorganStanley could actually make progress toward net-zero by:
1️⃣ Improving 2030 targets
2️⃣ Strengthening exclusion policies
3️⃣ Enhancing transparencyhttps://t.co/CcZzTCrGKi pic.twitter.com/PpPDXTApfQ
— Sierra Club (@SierraClub) October 9, 2024
The report's titular question is answered in the concluding section. "In general, the targets and exclusion policies of the major U.S. banks fall far behind international best practices and what is required in order to achieve their own climate commitments," it says.
"[They] have serious improvements to make in order to ensure their 2030 targets and financing policies are truly aligned with the goal of reaching net-zero by 2050," it also says.
The report provides detailed standards that banks must uphold if they want their net-zero policies to be "robust," and lays out examples of how each bank is failing to meet them.
The six banks are "relatively equal" in terms of their progress toward net zero, but there are some differences between them, the report says.
For example, only Citigroup and Wells Fargo have committed to reduce absolute emissions in the oil and gas sector—a key standard. The other four banks have merely set "emissions intensity" targets. Wells Fargo is the only one of the six to declare that its carbon accounting for 2030 won't include offsets or removal.
Bank of America, for its part, has backtracked on earlier climate pledges. Previously, the bank promised not to directly fund oil and gas drilling in the Arctic, but in December it announced it would simply apply "enhanced due diligence" to such projects.
One key standard that banks should employ is separating their emissions bookkeeping for lending and underwriting, the report says. Underwriting accounts for roughly half of banks' fossil fuel financing but is harder for the public to track than lending.
"Some banks limit their sectoral targets to cover lending, but exclude underwriting, creating a massive loophole through which billions of dollars can still be poured into heavily emitting sectors and projects," the report says.
In general, the report urges more standardization of climate accounting methods along with improved transparency and disclosure policies.
Four of the six banks are in fact in the top five on the list of global banks financing the fossil fuel industry since the Paris agreement was signed, according to the latest Banking on Climate Chaosreport, released in May. And when only financing for companies expanding oil and gas projects are considered, rather than just continuing to extract from existing reserves, the U.S. banks remain at the top.
"By far the most essential action that banks must take to reach their net-zero goals is to commit to ending support for expansion of fossil fuel production," the Sierra Club report says, citing Banking on Climate Chaos.
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Faith Leaders Chain Themselves to Citi HQ to Protest Fossil Fuel Financing
"We cannot profit off of death and destruction," one participant said. "We must love each other and the Earth."
Jul 30, 2024
Two dozen faith leaders and their supporters were arrested on Tuesday after chaining themselves to the doors of Citigroup's New York City headquarters to protest its financing of the climate emergency.
Around 50 people participated in the protest, which is part of the Summer of Heat series of actions demanding that Wall Street—and Citi in particular—stop funding oil, gas, and coal.
"I am here because I believe that there is a god in everyone and that calls us to take responsibility for destruction done in our name," Lina Blout of Earth Quaker Action Team said as she was being arrested. "We are all connected. We must live for the planet and each other, and not short-term profit."
Citi was the leading financier of fossil fuel expansion since the Paris agreement entered into force in 2016, spending $204 billion on the development of new oil, gas, and coal. It was also the second leading funder of fossil fuels over all, at nearly $400 billion. In addition to ditching climate-warming energy sources, participants in Summer of Heat want banks like Citi to "exponentially" up funding for renewables, respect the human rights of Indigenous and local communities, and contribute to a "climate reparations fund."
"We cannot profit off of death and destruction," Blout said. "We must love each other and the Earth."
Tuesday's action, led by GreenFaith, was part of the Summer of Heat's Faith Week, running from July 28 to August 3.
"We the people will not tolerate the bad practices of companies like Citi to fund and invest in oil companies who kill our world and it's future."
"Our faiths teach us that the Earth is a sacred trust and we are responsible for its care," GreenFaith wrote on social media. "Why is Citi continuing to violate that trust by giving hundreds of millions of dollars to oil and gas companies? We're here telling Citi: We can do better. We must do better!"
The faith leaders, dressed in white, converged on Citi at around 7:50 am Eastern Time. A total of eight people locked themselves to the doors, causing "chaos" as employees tried to enter for work. The blockade lasted for around half an hour.
"If you've got to walk through a gauntlet of protesters and cops to get to your job maybe you're working at the wrong place," nonprofit consultant Valerie Costa wrote in response to footage of the protest.
Among those arrested at the action were two frontline leaders from the U.S. Gulf Coast, which has been treated as a sacrifice zone by the oil and gas industry for decades.
"There is no future if we were to allow big oil and gas industries who produce death chemicals and products that will wipe out society," Debra Sullivan Ramirez, the president, CEO, and founder of Mossville Environmental Action Now, who was arrested Tuesday, told Common Dreams. "We the people will not tolerate the bad practices of companies like Citi to fund and invest in oil companies who kill our world and it's future."
In one incident, Citi security tried to force open a door while a protester was still chained to it, and then to yank him away from the door. When police joined in, the protester fell down.
"Police were contorting his legs behind the door," another demonstrator said, adding that "it looked painful."
Tuesday's protest brings the total number of arrests from Summer of Heat actions up to more than 450 since June 10, according to organizers.
It also follows a week that saw the four hottest days on record and comes as a heat dome is expected to descend upon much of the U.S., putting the Southwest, Southeast, and Great Plains at particular risk for potentially deadly heat, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) warned.
"Fossil-fuel driven climate change has increased the frequency and severity of extreme heat events over the last half century," UCS said.
The group urged local, state, and national authorities to take immediate measures to protect people such as implementing heat plans, ensuring access to cooling centers, and enshrining protections for outdoor workers.
"But ultimately," UCS said, "limiting the number of days of extreme heat in the long term necessitates that policymakers and decision-makers in all sectors of society do their part to cut heat-trapping emissions, halt the decades-long deception and obstruction by fossil fuel companies that has enabled runaway climate change, phase out fossil fuels, and accelerate the transition to a clean and just energy system."
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Moms and Kids Protest Fossil Fuel Expansion at Citigroup CEO's Home
Dozens of climate campaigners were arrested for protesting the multinational bank's financing of new fossil fuel development.
Jul 27, 2024
Hundreds of activists, largely mothers and their kids, protested outside Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser's luxury apartment building in New York City on Saturday, calling for the multinational bank she leads to stop funding fossil fuel expansion.
The protest, at which 59 people were arrested, was part of the Summer of Heat, a program of nonviolent direct action led by five climate advocacy groups that has targeted Citigroup because it's a leading funder of the fossil fuel industry.
The activists set up a memorial on the sidewalk outside Fraser's building dedicated to the tens of millions of children who've been displaced because of climate change in recent years.
Marlena Fontes, a director at Climate Defenders who organized the action, explained the impact of climate change on her family in a speech to gathered protesters. She said that when haze from Canadian wildfires covered New York City last year, her son was afraid, and her one-year-old daughter had an asthma attack.
"She was just one of many, many children on this planet who are being affected by the climate crisis," Fontes said.
BREAKING: NYPD arrests grandparents, parents, students, scientists and clergy outside of @Citibank CEO Jane Fraser’s NYC penthouse.
Citi keeps pouring billions into oil, gas and coal projects killing our kids. Jane can’t hide from responsibility. #SummerofHeat pic.twitter.com/0FUBStYvuK
— New York Communities for Change (@nychange) July 27, 2024
The protestors marched from Citigroup's headquarters to the apartment building, located a few blocks away. About 200 or 300 people took part in the protest, and 59 were arrested; the police were on site before they even arrived, Alicé Nascimento, policy director at New York Communities for Change, one of the Summer of Heat organizing groups, told Common Dreams. The other organizing groups are Climate Defenders, Climate Organizing Hub, Stop the Money Pipeline, and the youth-led Planet Over Profit.
BREAKING: Hundreds of parents and climate activists are about to descend onto the luxury apartment complex of Jane Fraser, the high powered CEO of @Citibank, the world’s biggest funder of fossil fuel expansion.
We’re taking the crisis to her doorstep. #SummerofHeat pic.twitter.com/50zGKVBwjT
— New York Communities for Change (@nychange) July 27, 2024
Summer of Heat, which began actions in early June, has turned out to be aptly named, as the summer has been full of deadly heatwaves in the U.S. and across the northern hemisphere. Saturday's action came following a week of extreme global temperatures: Monday was the hottest day in recorded history, breaking a record set just the day before. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on Thursday called for coordinated global action to deal with extreme heat, including by transitioning away from fossil fuels.
Corporations like Citigroup make that transition far more difficult, campaigners say. Citigroup was responsible for providing more financing to companies developing new fossil fuel projects than any other bank in the world for the period from 2015 to 2023, according to a Banking on Climate Chaosreport published in May. In terms of overall financing to fossil fuel companies, Citigroup ranked second in the world, behind only JPMorgan Chase, at nearly $400 billion during that period.
Saturday's action was the first of the summer targeted at Fraser's home, though a smaller group of campaigners did protest there in February. Fraser has in the past expressed a willingness to take a climate into account in Citigroup's dealings.
Rachel Rivera, a member of New York Communities for Change, spoke to the gathered protesters about the struggles that her family has faced in the past and in the recent extreme heat. She was displaced during Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and lost loved ones in Puerto Rico to Hurricane Maria in 2017. A mother of six, she said that last week her 10-year-old daughter had to be hospitalized and intubated due to respiratory seizures brought on by the extreme heat.
"Jane Fraser should walk a mile in my shoes," she said.
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