Tag: Wells Fargo

San Francisco: Action and March at Wells Fargo HQ and BlackRock Offices

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photo credit: Brooke Anderson

cross-posted from Diablo Rising Tide

Livestream link: https://www.facebook.com/INMSolidaritySF/

San Francisco: Hundreds Demand Wells Fargo Ceases Funding the Climate Crisis; Demand Ousting of Its Board Chair Charles Noski over Failure of Leadership

Broad coalition of hundreds of Indigenous, youth, grandmothers, and other climate activists to block streets, hold rally, jointly painted giant mural outside Wells Fargo HQ to call out megabank for continuing to fuel the climate crisis

Groups are calling for accountability from Wells Fargo leadership, who continue to fail frontline communities, the planet, and future generations

From Wells Fargo HQ, they will march to BlackRock offices to demand the asset manager votes out Charles Noski during shareholder season

San Francisco — On Friday morning, hundreds of activists will take to the streets of San Francisco to demand Wells Fargo takes responsibility for its role in the climate crisis by immediately changing course. The broad coalition of groups are united in a call for Wells Fargo to defund the Line 3 pipeline and hold its leadership to account for failure to act on climate, beginning with the removal of Board Chair Charles H. Noski.

The action will be led by Indigenous, youth, seniors, labor, and other climate advocates, with groups involved ranging from NDN Collective and Idle No More to 1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations, Earth Guardians, Mennonites, and Silicon Valley Climate Action Now. The groups call for urgent climate action, a halting of the Line 3 Pipeline’s construction, and the termination of any corporate leaders not taking definitive measures to reverse their companies’ contribution to global emissions and fossil fuel expansion, on the grounds that they are not only incompetent, but a threat to future generations. The participating groups will jointly paint a 200’ X 25’ banner on Montgomery Street, outside of Wells Fargo HQ.

Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/282846953288589

photo credit: Arthur Koch

The action began with a blockade of Montgomery Street outside of Wells Fargo Headquarters, where ten or more groups will paint large street murals demanding the defunding of Line 3, the firing of Noski, and the defense of land, water, and Indigenous rights. The murals will be surrounded by hundreds of socially distanced people, many holding signs with photos of younger relatives or friends, with the urgent call to “Protect Future Generations.” After a rally with numerous speakers, the groups will continue to BlackRock’s San Francisco Headquarters, where they will again block the street and hold a second rally, calling on the world’s largest investor (as well as Wells Fargo’s second largest shareholder) to use its voting power this shareholder season to vote out Charles Noski for his failure to incorporate climate change into his leadership of the bank.

Background: Wells Fargo has been the world’s third worst banker of fossil fuels since the adoption of the Paris Climate Agreement, with $223 billion in lending and underwriting between 2016 and 2020.  It is the world’s leading funder of fracked oil and gas.

Instead of taking the necessary action to end its funding of fossil fuel expansion, Wells Fargo continues to invest in and profit off the industries fueling climate change. That includes continuing to fund and advise Enbridge on its construction of the Line 3 pipeline, which would pump tar sands, the dirtiest form of oil, from Alberta, across Minnesota and Wisconsin.

The pipeline’s route endangers the Great Lakes, home to one fifth of the world’s fresh water, and some of the most delicate soils, aquifers, and pristine lakes in northern Minnesota, It also threatens critical resources on Ojibwe treaty lands, where tribal members retain the rights to hunt, fish, gather, hold ceremony, and travel. The pipeline would have a climate impact equivalent to bringing 50 new coal plants online or adding 38 million gasoline cars to the road. Line 3 and its route have seen escalating Indigenous-led dissent and pressure, with groups on the ground struggling to defend the land, water, and Indigenous sovereignty.

Because of Wells Fargo’s failure to respond to the struggle against Line 3, to stop funding climate chaos, or to realign its fossil fuel financing and policies to limit global warming to 1.5°C, groups like BlackRock’s Big Problem and Majority Action are calling on investors of Wells Fargo to vote hold Wells Fargo’s leadership accountable, beginning with the firing of Charles Noski.

The physical and financial risks posed by climate change to long-term investors are systemic, portfolio-wide, unhedgeable and undiversifiable. Therefore, companies like Wells Fargo that fail to align their business with limiting warming to 1.5°C pose risks to the financial system as a whole, and to investors’ entire portfolios.

Last year, groups demanded former oil man and climate-denial maven Lee Raymond be removed from the JPMorgan Chase board of directors. After a strong no vote, Lee Raymond left the board.

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Duluth, MN: Two protestors chain themselves to the Front Entrance of Wells Fargo Branch

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Water Protectors Keep Up Pressure on Line 3 Funders in Duluth

(Duluth, MN) On Wednesday morning, Water Protectors marched through downtown Duluth to call out Wells Fargo’s investments in Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline. Two people chained themselves to the front doors of the bank, shutting down the branch for nearly an hour. This is the second protest at this location this week, as opponents of the Line 3 pipeline escalate their opposition to the project’s financiers.

Protestors aim to challenge Wells Fargo’s investments in fossil fuel infrastructure, particularly the Line 3 pipeline. A report published last week by dozens of environmental nonprofits and research organizations identified Wells Fargo as the third greatest funder of fossil fuels among all banks. The movement to stop Line 3 is joined by organizations around the world in calling on banks and other financial entities to #DefundLine3 and all fossil fuel infrastructure.

Alex Golden-Wolf, a two-spirit Anishinaabe water protector, shared why they joined today’s rally: “I am marching today because I want my fellow neighbors of Minnesota to know the environmental impact that this pipeline will have on them.” Margaret spoke at the protest, saying “I’m shutting down this bank to let Wells Fargo, and other banks profiting from extraction and colonialism, know that we won’t allow it to happen anymore. Line 3 violates treaty rights, threatens the land and the water, and must be stopped.

This protest connecting fossil fuel investments to the Line 3 tar sands pipeline is yet another event in the growing movement resisting the pipeline. Since the Canadian energy transfer company Enbridge proposed the project in 2014, Indigenous communities and environmental organizations across Minnesota have resisted its permitting and construction. Although ongoing legal appeals have yet to be finalized in court, Enbridge was allowed to begin construction of the pipeline across Northern Minnesota in December of 2020. The movement is growing in numbers, and Indigenous-led direct action on the frontlines has delayed construction every week since it began.

Additional photos and interviews with movement leadership available upon request. Contact media@resistline3.org.

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Washington DC: Mobilize for Climate Justice & Immigrant Rights on December 6

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cross-posted from Shut Down DC

Around the world, climate change is driving mass migration as water dries up, farmland turns to desert, shorelines erode, coastal areas flood, permafrost melts and ecosystems can no longer support the communities they once could. And it is going to get much much worse.  As far back as 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted that the greatest single impact of climate change could be on human migration – and we’re seeing this projection come true. The latest estimates predict as many as 200 million climate refugees by 2050.

This is a climate and human rights crisis. Climate migrants routinely face life threatening hardship, discrimination and repression in their search for safety for their families, and often those most vulnerable to changing climate and extreme weather lack the resources to migrate, so remain in harm’s way.

Even worse, many of the same banks that made billions of dollars financing the fossil fuel industry that caused the climate crisis–Black Rock, Wells Fargo and JP Morgan Chase–are now profiting off of climate chaos by investing in the companies that are contracting with ICE to finance border wall construction and run for-profit prisons and detention centers. First they drive climate migration, and then they profit from it.

On December 6th, we’re going to shut down business-as-usual for the financial institutions that profit off of the climate crisis and immigrant detention. Meet us at 11am in Franklin Square (14th St. and I St. NW, Washington, DC 20005) for a rally featuring Jane Fonda and Fire Drill Fridays along with Saket Soni, the Executive Director of the National Guestworker Alliance, GreenFaith, the Franciscan Action Network and other climate, faith and migrant justice organizers. At 12 noon we’ll march through the streets of DC to visit the banks and financial institutions in DC that are profiting off of the climate crisis and immigrant detention.

WHEN: Friday, December 6th, 11am
WHERE: Franklin Square; 14th & I St NW, Washington, DC

Hooray for Scrappy Climate Action!

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What a month!

Scrappy resistance to fossil fuels, its financiers and the politicians that love them has hit new levels with the goal of meeting the scale of the climate crisis with equal amounts of people powered momentum. As a result, climate and anti-fossil fuels action, both large and small, has spread globally.

The climate uprising centered around Extinction Rebellion has shaken the political establishment in London and iis spreading to other parts of the world. But we mustn’t forget that for decades, we’ve seen communities in countries like China and India rising up by the tens of thousands against mining and polluting power plants. And for more than a decade in North America, an Indigenous and frontline-led effort against coal, oil and gas have fought hard against mountaintop removal, coal mining, fracking and pipelines.

Now, today, a new report says that over 50% of new pipelines globally are being built in the U.S. and Canada. Report co-author Ted Nace said “This is a whole energy system not compatible with global climate survival. These pipelines are locking in huge emissions for 40 to 50 years at a time, with the scientists saying we have to move in 10 years. These pipelines are a bet that the world won’t get serious about climate change, allowing the incumbency of oil and gas to strengthen.” At the same time, a new phase of infrastructure fights with state governments passing anti-protest laws throughout the country. In North America, we’re in for a long struggle to counter climate change and extraction.

The past couple of weeks have seen scrappy action hit western governments, banks and carbon intensive industries most responsible for climate change again.

In the U.S.:

  • Anchorage, Alaska: Trouble-makers with Alaska Rising Tide dropped off a banner in protest of the government’s move to mine the state’s Pebble Mine.
  • Appalachia: In Virginia, the Yellow Finch tree-sit has stopped the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) in its tracks for over 200 days.  An epic battle has lasted for over a year where scrappy action that has included multiple landowner-led tree-sits, monopods, equipment lockdowns, bird-dogs of corporate CEOs and politicians and an impressive grassroots organizing effort. The MVP has been delayed for at least a year and the campaign is far from over.
  • Austin, TX—XR Austin occupied a JPMorgan Chase branch with three members super gluing themselves inside the branch.
  • “Bank on Climate” Day of Action—In 22 cities, Rainforest Action Network and 350 Seattle organized rowdy actions in 22 cities against top climate financiers JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo. From corporate office occupations in Boulder, San Francisco and Minneapolis to the shutdown of all 44 Chase branches in Seattle to a banner hang at Grand Central Station in New York to the bird-dogging of Chase CEO Jamie Dimon during a congressional hearing in Washington D.C. (and much much more), the funders of the climate crisis are receiving well deserved heat.
  • Eugene, OR—XR Eugene teamed up with Cascadia Forest Defenders to launch a tree-sit in in town to draw a connection between forest destruction and climate destruction.
  • Los Angeles—Two members of Extinction Rebellion Los Angeles super-glued themselves to the top of the NBC/Universal Studios globe demanding that NBC (a major media outlet) prioritize climate change as a daily news topic and reject fossil fuel commercials. Four members of the team were arrested and charged with felonies.

    Two climate activists super glued to the top of the Universal Studios globe in Los Angeles.

  • NYC— Climate activists with Extinction Rebellion NYC shut down traffic outside New York City Hall Wednesday, partially blocking access to the Brooklyn Bridge and staging a die-in to demand radical action on climate change.
  • Portland, OR— Eleven people were arrested after building a garden in the train tracks as a creative blockade against the Zenith export terminal.
  • Washington D.C.: And in the U.S. capital, two of our comrades with Beyond Extreme Energy occupied to top of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) building for six hours demanding a “Federal Renewable Energy Commission.”

Elsewhere:

  • London: In meeting the crisis at the scale that is needed, Extinction Rebellion UK occupied London for ten days. They’ve shut down traffic routes, disrupted the “Tube,” protested Heathrow Airport and targeted politicians and bankers. With over 1000 arrests, the Met Police found themselves with full jails and crowds of more willing participants.
  • Paris: More than 2,000 climate activists held a nonviolent blockade of France’s environment ministry just outside of Paris on Friday, calling out government complicity with fossil fuel companies and the banks that fund them. Climate activists are calling it one of the largest acts of civil disobedience in French history. The blockade also successfully targeted French oil giant Total; Société Générale, an investment bank that funds dirty energy projects; and a state-run electric utility that relies heavily on nuclear power.

    Climate activists sit in at French environmental ministry in Paris. Pic via Democracy Now!

  • Rotterdam: Today, over 40 climate activists occupied the Engie coalfired power station
  • The rest of world : In other cities around the world, Extinction Rebellion has disrupted business as usual in India, Germany, Spain, Denmark and more.

As Paul Street recently paraphrased radical historian Howard Zinn:

“Howard Zinn was right. It’s not just about who’s sitting in the White House or the Governor’s mansion or the Mayor’s office or the city council seat.  It’s also and above all about who’s sitting in the streets, who’s disrupting, who’s monkey-wrenching, whose idling capital, who’s occupying the pipeline construction sites, the highways, the workplaces, the town-halls, the financial districts, the corporate headquarters, and universities beneath and beyond the biennial and quadrennial candidate-centered big money big media major party electoral extravaganzas that are sold to us as “politics” – the only politics that matters. This is true about fighting racist police violence. It’s true about labor rights and decent wages.  It’s true about all that and more and it’s true about saving livable ecology.”

We’re up against some very bad players. The worst in the world. Maybe the worst in the history of the world. It’s time for serious organizing and hardscrabble actions.

See you in the streets.