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Investors and JPMorgan Chase Reach Agreement to Uphold Indigenous Peoples’ Rights
Religious investors win SEC fight over bank resolution on Indigenous rights
March 10, 2025 — The SEC has sided with an order of New Jersey nuns in a dispute with Wall Street bank Citi, which tried to stop shareholders from voting for a fourth year on their resolution on Indigenous rights. The SEC also rejected Wells Fargo’s attempt to stop a similar resolution going before its shareholders, which has been filed by the American Home Baptist Mission Societies.
Citi filed a no-action letter at the SEC stating the resolution should be dropped since it had already implemented it – by publishing a report last year on risks to Indigenous rights. But the SEC rejected the report and met shareholders’ demands, stating: “based on the information you have presented, it appears that the Company’s public disclosures do not substantially implement the proposal”.
Citi has been desperate to silence the nuns’ resolution, which has become a thorn in the bank’s side. For three years, the resolution by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace has attracted support from over one in four Citi investors who shared their concerns that the bank should account for the impact of its oil and gas funding on Indigenous communities.
The Citi report – entitled Respecting the Rights of Indigenous People – in fact highlights how the bank is failing to act on risks to Indigenous rights: of the 16 companies it flags as posing risks, none have been refused funding or services by the bank. Of the 37 projects which the bank identified as posing a risk to Indigenous rights, Citi refused funding for just seven.
Wells Fargo attempted to have its Indigenous rights resolution knocked off, saying the SEC’s recent advice that proposals may be excluded if they do not significantly relate to a company’s operations. The SEC rejected this, stating: “We are unable to concur in your view”.
The Sisters’ resolution details funding Citi has committed to the highly indebted state-owned Petroperú, which operates the controversial Norperuano pipeline. The company also wants to develop the highly contested Block 64–a pristine part of the Peruvian Amazon–which lacks the free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous nations. Just last October, Petroperú’s pipeline leaked 6,000 liters of oil in the Pastaza River in the Amazon basin, contaminating crucial fishing areas and causing food insecurity for several communities.
Citi has poured $2.32 billion into oil and gas activities in the Amazon rainforest over the past 20 years, according to a report from last year. The bank’s exclusion on project-related financing for Amazon oil and gas expansion would likely not apply to corporate financing for Petroperú.
Both resolutions focus on the banks’ financing for Enbridge, which is behind the biggest inland oil spills in U.S. history and the controversial Line 5 pipeline in Michigan, which the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has said should be decommissioned. At last year’s Citi annual shareholders meeting, the Sisters’ resolution was presented by Juan Mancias, tribal chairman of the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of South Texas, which is opposing Enbridge’s plans to build the Rio Bravo pipeline on his ancestral lands to feed fracked gas into the Rio Grande LNG facility.
A third Indigenous rights resolution has also been filed at JP Morgan Chase, but did not face a no action letter from the bank.
Quotes
“We are delighted that the SEC has backed shareholders and allowed the vote to go ahead on our resolution, which aims to assess the bank’s effectiveness in mitigating risk to investors when it comes to the impacts on Indigenous Peoples and their lands. Citi was clearly trying to silence shareholders, but it is important that investors have their say and express their views on this important issue. Citi has a responsibility to mitigate risk for investors. As faith-based investors, we have a responsibility to follow Church teaching to care for Earth and protect human dignity. We take our role seriously and we want Citi to take theirs seriously.” – Sister Susan Francois, of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, Citi shareholders and lead filer on the Indigenous rights resolution
“We, the Indigenous Peoples of the Amazon, have lived through ecological devastation, witnessed decades of pollution, and faced repeated threats to our self-determination due to spills caused by oil companies like Petroperú and their financiers, such as Citi. Citi attempts to portray the supposed effectiveness of its climate policies, while in reality, its clients continue trying to open new oil fields without addressing any of the damage they have caused. We dedicate our lives to defending our territories against oil exploitation. In truth, Citi is doing nothing genuinely effective to avoid harming our rights and minimizes its role as an oil investor.” – Olivia Bisa, President of the Autonomous Territorial Government of the Chapra Nation, in the North Peruvian Amazon Basin
“We applaud the SEC for refusing to cave to the Trump administration’s pressure to silence investors. Citi’s attempted block of this proposal was a cowardly move to dodge investor scrutiny of its Indigenous Rights commitments. Now it’s up to Citi’s shareholders to demand meaningful protections of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights from the bank, beyond mere disclosures.” – Hannah Saggau, Senior Climate Finance Campaigner at Stand.earth
“Indigenous Peoples continue to expose the reprehensible role Citi and its clients play in driving the destruction of their communities in the Peruvian Amazon, the Gulf South, and across the globe. Their organizing is working – Citi fears further exposure of these efforts to their investors. Citi’s failed attempt to actively de-platform and silence the voices of outspoken environmental defenders to appease the new administration should alarm its shareholders, who bear a responsibility to scrutinize the visceral implications of their investments on people and the planet.” – Mary Mijares, Corporate Campaigns Manager at Amazon Watch
“We are both relieved and pleased with the SEC’s ruling, which protects shareholders’ rights to have our proposal reviewed and voted on—a right Wells Fargo attempted to block. Our proposal raises a critical issue: the company’s failure to assess the significant risks posed by its actions and policies toward Indigenous Peoples’ rights. By ignoring these risks, Wells Fargo is not only compromising its own reputation but also exposing itself to serious financial and operational vulnerabilities. As investors, we believe it is crucial that the company take immediate action to address these concerns and safeguard its long-term stability. As a faith-based institution, ABHMS has and will continue to engage with Wells Fargo in the spirit of our mission to protect and address human rights concerns and interests.” – Gina Haas, American Baptist Home Mission Society (ABHMS)
A Giant Leap Backwards for Banks’ Investment in a Climate Safe Future
By Hannah Saggau, Senior Climate Finance Campaigner with Stand.earth, and leader of the FossilFreeCiti.org campaign.
We just learned some big news on big banks’ funding for Big Oil and Gas—and it’s not good.
On a Friday afternoon, top fossil fuel funder Wells Fargo took a giant leap backwards on climate, dropping its 2030 and 2050 climate goals in a cowardly and dangerous move.
What does this mean? Let’s break it down.
Big Banks are Funding Climate Chaos
Fossil fuel companies need money to torch the planet—and they are getting it from banks. Major banks including JP Morgan Chase, Citi, and Wells Fargo funnel billions of dollars every year into oil and gas companies that are driving catastrophic climate impacts. This financing enables polluters to build new toxic facilities, from fossil gas pipelines and export terminals in the U.S. Gulf South, to oil drilling on Indigenous territories in the Amazon rainforest.
Image: Banking on Climate Chaos, 2024. Bar graph of “The Dirty Dozen’s” fossil fuel financing.
Because of our pressure, between 2020 and 2021, all of the top Wall Street banks came out with pledges to reach “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This included commitments to reduce their “financed emissions” – or the climate pollution that stems from their lending for the fossil fuel industry.
To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, the world needs to rapidly reduce pollution by transitioning away from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, according to climate experts. This includes no more financing for new or expanded fossil fuel supplies as of 2021, according to world energy modelers.
Image: Bloomberg News article on Citi CEO Jane Fraser commiting to Net-Zero on her first day
Since then, big banks have been caving to rightwing pressure by abandoning their climate commitments—a pattern that has accelerated since Trump was elected. Wells Fargo’s decision to scrap its climate targets is the latest in this dangerous trend.
This move makes it clear that Wells Fargo does not care about you. The bank’s executives do not care if your already high grocery bill surges because climate change raises costs for food and other goods. They do not care if the price of gas spikes because refineries are disrupted by extreme heat and storms. They do not care if your insurance premiums are skyrocketing because of climate threats. Wells Fargo executives are perfectly happy to keep profiting from handing over money to the companies that are driving these climate impacts.
It’s critical for Wells Fargo to hear from our movement that this move is unacceptable. Email Wells Fargo’s top decision makers now to let them know loud and clear: we will hold them accountable for walking away from their climate goals.
Hip Hop Caucus and Stand.earth on The Healthcare Policy Podcast
This podcast was originally published on The Healthcare Policy Podcast ® Produced by David Introcaso and on Apple Podcast.
Citibank, one of the world’s largest fossil fuel financiers, is redefining the meaning of environmental racism via its funding of four LNG export terminals and a plastics factory in the Gulf South.
>> LISTEN HERE <<
Under the Biden administration the US once again became the world’s largest producer of oil and gas. Because all fossil fuels projects are politically constituted via permitting, etc., it is no surprise that of the nearly $7 trillion of fossil fuel investments since the 2015 Paris Accord, almost $2 trillion has been provided by six US banks including Citi.
Cancer Alley, the nickname for a stipe of largely Louisiana coastline, is home to over 200 petrochemical plants, refineries and ports. As the name implies, per the EPA, cancer alley residents are exposed to over ten times the level of health risks from resulting air pollution.
A recent report by Hip Hop, Stand.earth and others, titled “Citi: Funding Fossil-Fueled Environmental Racism in the Gulf South,” documents Citi’s investment in moreover four liquified natural gas (LNG) export terminals, the GHG emissions they’ll emit and the resulting health harms they’ll inflict on moreover minoritized communities.
As likely the frontline example of environmental racism should cause one to recall the prosecutor’s closing argument in the George Floyd case, “if you’re doing something that hurts somebody, and you know it, you’re doing it on purpose.”
The report is at: https://stand.earth/resources/citi-enviro-racism/
Info on the Hip Hop Caucus is at: hiphopcaucus.org
Info on Stand.earth is at: stand.earth
Info on Rise St. James is at: risestjames.org
JAMA-published research in 2019: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2736934
Nuns hit back at Trump-emboldened bank move with SEC filing
An order of New Jersey nuns has hit back at Citi over its attempt to get the Securities & Exchange Commission to stop a shareholder vote on their contentious resolution on Indigenous rights. The move mirrors similar no-action letters filed at the SEC by four other banks seeking to stop shareholder votes on a resolution by the NYC Comptroller on energy funding ratios, indicating that banks are hoping Trump’s anti-climate stance will influence the SEC to push back on accountability by shareholders.
In a rebuttal to the SEC in response to Citi’s no-action letter the nuns state: “The proposal has not been substantially implemented and, therefore, is not subject to exclusion.”
Read the Sisters of St Joseph of Peace full rebuttal here.
The Sisters of St Joseph of Peace have filed the resolution for the fourth year in a row which has attracted support from over one in four investors, despite Citi urging shareholders to vote against it. This is the first year Citi has tried to prevent shareholders from voting on it.
The resolution has become a thorn in the side for Citi as it highlights controversial funding the bank has provided for companies accused of violating Indigenous rights, such as Petroperú in the Amazon and pipeline company Enbridge, which is building the Line 3 and Line 5 pipes in the US.
Citi contends the resolution should be dropped because it published a report last year entitled ‘Respecting the Rights of Indigenous People’. The Sisters maintain the report is inadequate and rehashes its activities rather than assessing their effectiveness. They also state that the report fails to adhere to international standards or include perspectives of impacted Indigenous communities. It adds that Indigenous nations in the Amazon last year rejected the Citi report as failing to address human rights violations.
The Citi report gives details which show how the bank is failing to act comprehensively on risks to Indigenous rights: of the 16 companies it flags as posing risks, none have been refused funding or services by the bank. Of the 37 projects which the bank identified as posing a risk to Indigenous rights, Citi refused funding for just seven.
The Sisters’ resolution sets out funding Citi has made to state-owned Petroperú, which operates the controversial Norperuano pipeline and which wants to develop the highly contested Block 64, a pristine part of the Amazon where Indigenous nations live. Just last October, Petroperú’s pipeline leaked 6,000 liters of oil in the Pastaza River in the Amazon basin, contaminating crucial fishing areas and causing food insecurity for several communities. Citi has poured $2.32 billion into oil and gas activities in the Amazon rainforest over the past 20 years, according to a report from last year.
The resolution also focuses on Citi’s $9 billion financing of Enbridge, which is behind the biggest inland oil spills in US history and the controversial Line 5 pipeline in Michigan, which the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues has said should be decommissioned. At last year’s Citi annual shareholders meeting, the Sisters’ resolution was presented by Juan Mancias, tribal chairman of the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of South Texas, which is opposing Enbridge’s plans to build The Rio Bravo pipeline on his ancestral lands to feed into the Rio Grande LNG facility.
QUOTES
“We are disappointed that Citi is seeking to stop shareholders voting on our resolution which aims to assess the bank’s effectiveness in mitigating risk to investors when it comes to the impacts on Indigenous Peoples and their lands. We hope the SEC will protect the right of Citi’s shareholders to have their say and express their views on this issue. Citi has a responsibility to mitigate risk for investors. As faith-based investors, we have a responsibility to follow Church teaching to care for Earth and protect human dignity. We take our role seriously and we want Citi to take theirs seriously.” – Sister Susan Francois, of the Sisters of St Joseph of Peace, Citi shareholders and lead filer on the Indigenous rights resolution
“We, the Indigenous peoples of the Amazon, have lived through ecological devastation, witnessed decades of pollution, and faced repeated threats to our self-determination due to spills caused by oil companies like Petroperú and their financiers, such as Citi. Citi attempts to portray the supposed effectiveness of its climate policies, while in reality, its clients continue trying to open new oil fields without addressing any of the damage they have caused. We dedicate our lives to defending our territories against oil exploitation. In truth, Citi is doing nothing genuinely effective to avoid harming our rights and minimizes its role as an oil investor.” –Olivia Bisa, President of the Autonomous Territorial Government of the Chapra Nation, in the North Peruvian Amazon Basin
“Citi’s attempt to block this proposal is a cowardly move to dodge investor scrutiny of its Indigenous rights commitments. The bank is quickly falling in line with the Trump administration’s anti-Native agenda. With this latest move, Citi reveals that its talk of protecting Indigenous rights was just bluster that is now crumbling with a change in political winds.” – Hannah Saggau, Senior Climate Finance Campaigner at Stand.earth
“Indigenous peoples continue to expose the reprehensible role Citi and its clients play in driving the destruction of their communities in the Peruvian Amazon, the Gulf South, and across the globe. It is clear that their organizing is working – Citi fears further exposure of these efforts to their investors. As the bank tries to appease the new administration by unapologetically backsliding on its climate commitments, its new efforts to actively de-platform and silence the voices of outspoken environmental defenders most impacted by its financing may set a dangerous precedent for financial institutions.” – Mary Mijares, Fossil Finance Campaigner at Amazon Watch
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Bloomberg New Energy Finance Latest Energy Ratio Report 2025
GLOBAL – Today, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) released its updated report, Energy Supply Banking Ratios, revealing that major fossil fuel financing banks – including Citi and Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) – continue to vastly underfinance renewable energy and climate solutions. This comes as US and Canadian banks quit the Net Zero Banking Alliance around Trump’s inauguration, and following Earth’s hottest-ever year.
Energy ratios are becoming an increasingly crucial tool for investors to evaluate how banks are helping or hindering the energy transition. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), the ratio of financing clean-to-dirty energy supply must be 6:1 by 2030 to support an energy transition that hopes to keep temperature increase under 1.5 degrees.
Notably, BloombergNEF reveals that the Royal Bank of Canada’s was the lowest of the world’s biggest lenders, at 0.47.
On this latest report, Hannah Saggau, Stand.earth Senior Climate Finance Strategist, issued the following statement:
“This well-researched report provides a much-needed standardized methodology for investors to transparently measure and compare banks’ financing for renewable energy relative to fossil fuels. Unfortunately, global banks like RBC and Citi remain dangerously out of line with a just transition while backsliding on global commitments. As our communities experience intensifying fires, floods, and storms, any self-reporting diverging from this standardized model risks confusing investors and perpetuating greenwashing.”
According to BNEF, top fossil fuel financing banks reveal the following ratios:
| Bank | Clean-to-dirty energy financing ratio |
| RBC | 0.47 |
| Citi | 0.75 |
| JP Morgan Chase | 0.80 |
| Bank of America | 1.04 |
| BNP Paribas | 3.18 |
| Wells Fargo | 0.521 |
The BNEF report uses a standardized methodology applied across 1000 banks it reviews, allowing a like-for-like comparison for investors. Self-reporting by banks using individualized, custom methodologies, like those used by JPMC, contain different and often conflicting data, making it ineffectual for investors who seek to compare banks’ progress. For example, JPMorgan Chase (JPMC) released its own self-reported ratio as 1.29:1 low- to high-carbon energy financing, using a flawed methodology.
This also comes as an exposé from The Examination, The Associated Press, Toronto Star, and Mississippi Today reveals how banks are giving billions to major polluters, and labeling it as “sustainable,” with 1-out-of-5 sustainability-linked dollars since 2018 going to major polluters.
In early 2024, shareholder resolutions by New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, supported by Stand.earth, advanced at the largest North American banks. Prior to planned votes at Citi, RBC, and JPMC, the banks agreed to the terms of the resolutions, resulting in withdrawals of the proposals and commitments to transparently report their energy ratio financing. Investor support for the resolutions that went to a shareholder vote at Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, ranged between 23% and 29%. These resolutions have been submitted at these banks, as well as other Canadian banks, for consideration at 2025 meetings.
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New Exposé Uncovers Billions in Bogus “Sustainability-Linked” Financing
A new exposé from The Examination, The Associated Press, Toronto Star, and Mississippi Today reveals how banks are giving billions to major polluters, and labeling it as “sustainable.”
2024 was an unprecedented year for corporate greenwashing. As 2025 kicks-off amidst fires, smoke, storms and floods, we’re already seeing big banks and asset managers backsliding on global climate commitments, revealing their true ways of climate delay and deceit.
A new exposé from The Examination, The Associated Press, Toronto Star, and Mississippi Today reveals how banks are giving billions to major polluters, and labeling it as “sustainable.”
This deep investigative reporting revealed that, since 2018, of the $1.5 trillion of “green” loans and bonds issued, $285+ billion has gone to major polluters like Enbridge, Shell, and Drax. That’s 1 out of 5 sustainability-linked dollars, and enough to cover costs of major US climate disasters in 2024 – 1.5 times over.
As Richard Brooks, Stand.earth’s Climate Finance Director points out, these sustainability-linked loans and bonds “do not lead to measurable change… and they’re really meant to greenwash your finances mostly for expansion activities.”
Banks’ billions of sustainability-linked bogus
The findings are damning; banks like Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Bank of America, Barclays and Citibank tag these as “Sustainability-Linked Loans” or “Sustainability-Linked Bonds” (aka SLLs or SLBs), doling them out to clients at a major discount, but requiring little to no oversight, transparency, or accountability to ensure these billions actually go to climate solutions.
According to The Examination and Associated Press investigation, spearheaded by reporter Sasha Chavkin, “In several cases, the companies’ own documents showed that their overall emissions increased substantially even as they received SLLs linked to decarbonization.”
RBC, Citibank share “green veneer” with Enbridge
As uncovered by Marco Chown Oved and Robert Cribb for the Toronto Star, this deception is clear among Canadian banks as the terms of these deals are kept “mostly secret,” leaving the public and investors in the dark on how to measure “sustainability,” while they publicly tout broad climate goals.
Take Enbridge, one of the largest pipeline companies in North America. Since 2021, Enbridge has emerged with “eco-funding” to the tune of $7.3 billion. That’s enough to cover the costs of Canada’s two biggest climate disasters in 2024 – 4 times over.
Meanwhile, Enbridge plows polluting pipelines through communities without consent. The pipeline company’s emissions have actually gone up since its first sustainability-linked loan in 2021, which was funded by a group of more than 20 banks including RBC, Barclays, JPMorgan and Citibank.
“There are choices being made here to continue to do business as usual and add a green veneer to it,” reminds Brooks.
In 2024, RBC CEO Dave McKay and the country’s top bankers were forced to testify in Parliament on the role of Canadian banks in financing, or holding back, an inevitable just transition off fossil fuels. RBC is currently under investigation by Canada’s Competition Bureau for allegedly misleading advertising.
Drax: forest and climate criminal
In 2024, international energy giant Drax got its biggest SLL to date. As reported by Alex Rozier for Mississippi Today, “Drax, the British owner of wood pellet plants in Mississippi and Louisiana that has paid millions in fines and settlements for violating state pollution laws in recent years, has received at least $762 million in ‘green’ loans during that same period.”
As published in Associated Press, “John Sterman, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said Drax’s sustainability-linked loans incentivize activities that end up being more damaging to the environment.”
Burning forest biomass to generate energy at utility scale, often in the form of wood pellets, has devastating consequences for global emissions reduction targets. As countries seek alternatives to coal, many like the United Kingdom and Japan are turning to burning imported biomass to keep the lights on. But burning biomass can emit at least as much CO2 as coal at the smokestack. So how can Drax and the banks and countries it does business with claim that biomass is renewable energy?
As Sasha Chavkin writes in The Examination: “They don’t count emissions from burning wood. [They use a] carbon accounting escape clause – endorsed by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.”
Forests around the world face the growing threat of biomass sourcing, which can entrench and expand industrial logging to keep up with the demand. Multiple investigations have revealed that Drax sources biomass from old growth forests in Canada. In the US southeast, pellet plants are often located on the doorsteps of lower-income majority Black communities where they create large amounts of air pollution harming the health of those who live nearby. Burning biomass is a dangerous distraction from real green energy solutions, and the big banks are complicit in advancing it.
Accountability and the fight ahead
Let’s be clear: despite greenwashing efforts, big banks and fossil fuel companies are lying to all of us while poisoning water, air, and land. Meanwhile their CEOs rake in multi-million-salaries, while our communities recover and rebuild from unnatural disasters. The time for accountability is now.
In 2025, our job is to protect our communities and put that choice front and center. Instead of financing climate criminals fossil fuels and biomass, banks must stop the deception and finance climate-safe solutions – or risk lawsuits and major losses. Fossil fuel companies, meanwhile, must be held accountable for climate damages and deception.
Bloomberg: Wall Street’s Top Banks Just Quit a Once Popular Alliance
Within the span of a month, Wall Street’s biggest banks have quit what had been one of the most popular clubs inside global finance.
The Net-Zero Banking Alliance — a group dedicated to helping lenders reduce their carbon footprints — has in quick succession been abandoned by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp. and Morgan Stanley. JPMorgan Chase & Co., the largest US bank, looks to be next in line.
The moves reflect US banks’ desire to shield themselves from increasing political pressure as Donald Trump returns to the White House, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations. And NZBA is bracing for more US exits, Secretariat Lead Sarah Kemmitt told members in a Dec. 31 letter seen by Bloomberg. She cited the “political environment.”
At the same time, the real-world impact of the NZBA defections is unclear. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, banks have collectively stepped up their financing of the fossil-fuel industry since the alliance was formed in 2021.
Membership of NZBA was likely more a case of “virtue signaling” than “meaningful climate impacts,” said Jill Fisch, a business law professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
A spokesperson for NZBA declined to comment.
Activists are now demanding that the government intervene to target Wall Street. Environmental Advocates NY, a nonprofit, says it’s urging New York state officials to introduce regulations and laws that would compel banks operating in the world’s biggest financial hub to take climate action.
The wave of NZBA exits follows behind-the-scenes tensions that have been brewing for more than two years, Bloomberg’s reporting has shown. In 2022, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley were among banks pushing back against binding targets on climate finance. NZBA then watered down some requirements, and members stayed put. But as the Republican Party grows more hostile toward climate-friendly organizations, the finance industry is repositioning itself.
Global temperatures are rising fast, yet banks continue to reap short-term profits by sticking with fossil fuel producers. It’s therefore both “distressing and unsurprising” that Wall Street is turning it’s back on net zero alliances, said Ken Pucker, who teaches sustainability at the Fletcher School at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.
The alliances were created in order to encourage the finance industry to take into account the longer-term cost of supporting oil, gas and coal.
Back in 2021, when NZBA was formed, banks now leaving the alliance proudly touted their membership. BofA Chief Executive Officer Brian Moynihan spoke of a “commitment to net zero” in his role as co-chair of the Sustainable Markets Initiative, whose stated mission is to “build a coordinated global effort” to help green the private sector.
And in an April 2021 statement announcing its agenda, the world’s biggest coalition for climate finance — the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero — said it would “require signatories to set science-aligned interim and long-term goals to reach net zero no later than 2050.”
GFANZ ended 2024 by recalibrating its mission as banks flee and GOP attacks intensify. The group is distancing itself from the net zero alliances for which it had previously been an umbrella organization. Going forward, GFANZ will make its guidance available to financial firms, whether they’ve committed to a net zero alliance or not.
A spokesperson for GFANZ declined to comment beyond the group’s public statements. Banks that sign up to NZBA still commit to transition their financed emissions to align with “pathways to net zero by 2050” at the latest, according to its website. They’re also required to provide 2030 targets to show they’re on track, and to document their progress.
All banks exiting NZBA have made public statements to say they still recognize decarbonization as a worthy goal. But they’ve also made clear that their biggest duty is to serve the needs of their clients. None has provided an official reason for quitting the alliance.
Wall Street is now navigating a world in which bankers and money managers suspected of being unsupportive of the GOP’s pro-fossil fuel agenda face a growing threat of litigation.
Just weeks after Trump was re-elected in November, Texas led a move to sue BlackRock Inc., Vanguard Group Inc. and State Street Corp. for allegedly breaching antitrust laws by adopting pro-climate strategies to suppress coal production.
Then in December, the GOP-led House Judiciary Committee said it found “substantial evidence that a climate cartel of financial institutions” had engaged in “anticompetitive collusion” by demanding that companies “disclose, reduce and enforce” their net zero climate commitments.
The committee, which is led by Ohio Republican Jim Jordan, singled out GFANZ and similar groups for leading what it described as a climate crusade.
GOP members have made clear they feel increasingly emboldened. After hearing of the defections from NZBA, Republican Congressman-elect Riley Moore of West Virginia said via a spokesperson that he will keep trying to ban and block financial firms suspected of supporting “anti-fossil fuel ESG policies.”
Meanwhile, Wall Street firms continue to earn considerably more from arranging fossil-fuel deals than their European counterparts. Last year, JPMorgan topped the league table of banks underwriting bonds and loans for oil, gas and coal companies, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It was followed by Wells Fargo, TD Securities, BofA, RBC Capital Markets and Citigroup. The biggest underwriter of green bonds, meanwhile, was BNP Paribas SA, which is the largest bank in the European Union.
Fossil-Fuel Financing by Banks Since Start of 2021
JPMorgan is lead global banker to oil, gas and coal producers
European banks, which are subject to much stricter climate regulations than their US peers, have so far showed no sign of walking away from NZBA. And representatives of lenders with headquarters spanning London to Amsterdam to Frankfurt said they plan to stay put.
“Our position is very straightforward, we have absolutely no intention of leaving the NZBA,” a spokesperson for Standard Chartered Plc told Bloomberg. ING Groep NV and Deutsche Bank AG have made similar statements.
Global banks provided about $680 billion worth of fossil-fuel loans and bond deals in 2024, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s up from $667 billion in 2021, when NZBA was created. Banks that have stepped up such deals over the period include BofA and Goldman, the data show.
Pucker of Tufts University draws parallels between the choices banks are making today, and those they made in the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis. He says to understand banks’ thinking now, it’s worth recalling a 2007 comment by Charles O. Prince III, who was Citigroup’s CEO at the time: “‘As long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance’.”
Global warming is now on track to race past the critical threshold of 1.5C, raising questions as to the value of having financial firms claim they can still align their operations with that target.
“Banks merely reflect the real economy,” said Aniket Shah, head of sustainability and transition strategy at Jefferies Financial Group Inc. “So if the real economy remains a hydrocarbon economy, then banks will reflect that too.”
Environmental Advocates NY says the state government must now consider forcing banks to impose financing limits to align with climate goals, including restrictions targeting fossil fuels. They also are calling for rules that would require banks to document the extent to which they’re lowering their so-called financed emissions.
Vanessa Fajans-Turner, executive director at the nonprofit, said it’s clear Republicans have succeeded in their efforts to get Wall Street to retreat from climate commitments, “modest” as they were.
“The banks won’t police themselves,” she said. “That’s why we need regulation.”
This article was originally published on Bloomberg by Saijel Kishan and Natasha White
REPORT: Deaths, Asthma, Climate Pollution Linked to Citi’s Funding of Gas Terminals
NEW YORK CITY – The lives and health of families in Texas and Louisiana are being directly impacted by Citi’s funding of nearby liquified methane gas projects (LNG), a new report released today shows. Over $36 million in health costs, two deaths, and more than 1,600 incidences of asthma symptoms per year in the region are linked to the $1.6 billion the bank has pumped into four LNG facilities in the Gulf South. The bank’s financed emissions related to these facilities is equivalent to over 6 coal plants or 6 million gasoline cars annually.
The report, Citi: Funding Fossil-Fueled Environmental Racism in the Gulf South, quantifies the projected health impacts the facilities’ permitted air pollution could have on the region and highlights three communities in the area that are fighting back against fossil fuel development.
“As a mother of six and resident of Southwest Louisiana, I have witnessed firsthand the devastating impacts of environmental racism,” said Roishetta Ozane, Co-Director of the Gulf South Fossil Finance Hub. “When Citi and other banks fund fossil fuels, they are complicit in the chronic health conditions that stem from these facilities’ pollution. Citi must prioritize the wellbeing of marginalized communities and stop funding the fossil fuel industry’s injustice.”
The report undermines Citi’s claims to be advancing racial equity and climate action. The bank is the biggest funder in the world of fossil fuel expansion since 2016, pumping $204 billion into new oil, gas and coal build-outs in that period. It finances projects and companies in communities of color that cause dangerous impacts both for the people living nearby and beyond. Therefore, the report concludes that Citi is perpetuating environmental racism.
“As a lifelong Port Arthurian, I’ve seen this community go from life to death due to Citi’s destruction!” Reginald Trainer, with the Port Arthur Community Action Network said. “Race plays a big part of that. I believe it and I can see it. Citi is responsible for the part it’s played in harming our community.”
The dataset showcased in the report estimates the real-world impacts related to Citi’s funding of LNG terminals that are operating and under construction in low-income and communities of color in Texas and Louisiana; specifically Cameron LNG, Corpus Christi LNG, Port Arthur LNG, and Sabine Pass LNG. This analysis estimates that by providing at least $1.6 billion in direct financing to the four LNG export terminals, Citi could be attributed with up to the following annual estimated impacts related to the facilities’ permitted air pollution:
- 2.3 premature deaths
- $36 million in health costs
- 10 cases of childhood asthma onset
- 1,654 instances of asthma symptoms
- 864 lost school days
- 65 lost work days
- 26 MMT CO2e/yr*
*equivalent to the emissions from 6.6 coal plants or 6 million gas cars in a year
If all of these facilities are constructed, over the course of an LNG terminal’s lifespan of up to 35 years, Citi could be responsible for as many as 80.5 premature deaths related to the air pollution from these projects. This does not include additional deaths if each of these terminals complete their planned expansion phases, which would increase the amount of toxic pollution unleashed on nearby communities.
“Ongoing fossil fuel extraction continues to destroy Indigenous lands all over the Global South and in communities of color here in Texas and Louisiana. CitiBank doesn’t care how many communities, sacred sites, or ecosystems they destroy as long as they make their money,” Dr. Christopher Basaldú of the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe said. “Citibank and other large financial institutions are crucial elements in perpetuating climate chaos by funding the racist projects that are deliberately sited in Indigenous communities and communities of color. Many people do not have access to health care, so the negative health impacts of proposed fossil fuel projects would sicken these communities for generations.”
In addition to the data, the report focuses attention on three communities in the Gulf South that are fighting Citi’s financing of projects in their communities; Port Arthur, Texas; the Rio Grande Valley, Texas, and St. James Parish, Louisiana. Through interviews with members of each community, the case studies highlight the human cost of living near polluting facilities and present clear cases of environmental injustice. These case studies also illustrate the courage of community leaders who stand up to corporations and their financial backers, demand accountability from politicians, and build solutions for their neighbors and families.
Citi has provided over $9 billion in financing for Enbridge from 2016 to 2023, supporting their plans to build an LNG pipeline in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. From 2001 to 2015, Citi also financed $668 million for Formosa Plastics, which is now planning the so-called “Sunshine Project” in St. James, Louisiana. The research found that Citi’s corporate-level financing for Enbridge is associated with the equivalent emissions of over 12 million gas-powered cars in a year. It also found that Formosa Plastics’ 2022 emissions are equivalent to 11 million gas-powered cars or 12.2 coal plants operating for a year. The combined estimated health impacts related to air pollution projected for the Rio Bravo Pipeline’s Compressor Station (Enbridge) and the Sunshine Project (Formosa Plastics) include 13 deaths and $203 million in health costs per year.
“Citi’s lack of regard for people, especially Black Americans, as they continue to finance petrochemicals in these communities just emphasizes their environmentally racist tendencies,” Shamell Lavigne, Chief Operating Officer of RISE St. James said. “St. James Parish has been a safe haven for me, my family and our community for generations. But Citi continues to enable companies like Formosa Plastics to pollute and harm us without accountability.”
Citi needs to end its financing of fossil fuels in the Gulf South, and beyond. The report comes after a summer of actions targeting Citi at their New York City headquarters dubbed “the Summer of Heat.” Over the course of the summer activists organized 32 actions, including 28 moments of civil disobedience with over 700 arrests in an effort to pressure Citi’s CEO, Jane Fraser, to stop financing fossil fuel projects.
The report was released by Stand.earth, the Gulf South Fossil Finance Hub, The Vessel Project of Louisiana, Stop the Money Pipeline, Hip Hop Caucus, and Texas Campaign for the Environment Fund, in collaboration with the Port Arthur Community Action Network, the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of South Texas, and RISE St. James.
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Contact:
Emily Pomilio, [email protected]
