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End fossil finance!

It’s simple — to prevent devastating climate breakdown, we have to end all finance to fossil fuels.

Public and private banks pour hundreds of billions of euros each year into the climate-wrecking fossil industry. We need to urgently work together to stop fossil finance through sustained public organising and people power.

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WHY FOSSIL FINANCE?

Vast sums of money are flowing out of Europe to support fossil fuel projects in Asia, Africa and Latin America, trashing the environment and trampling on human rights. The profits flows back to Europe and into the pockets of millionaire executives and shareholders.

This is what European colonialism looks like in the 21st century.

It’s simple — to prevent devastating climate breakdown, we have to end all finance to fossil fuels.

How much time have you got?

“Money is the oxygen on which the fire of global warming burns”Bill McKibben

Fossil fuel companies are doing everything they can to destroy our planet, and we’re running out of time to turn the tide. Across the world, courageous communities are risking everything to stop fossil fuel companies from developing new coal mines, oil wells or gas pipelines on their land – often suffering harassment, violence and persecution as a result.

But the fights against these projects don’t just happen on the frontlines, and all of us have a role to play.

Most of the big decisions about fossil fuel projects happen a long way from the places where the coal, oil and gas are being extracted or burned. They’re made in corporate boardrooms in cities like Paris, London and Frankfurt – homes to some of the world’s biggest financial centres.

Vast sums of money are flowing out of Europe to support fossil fuel projects in Asia, Africa and Latin America, trashing the environment and trampling over human rights. The profits from those projects are then flowing back to Europe and into the pockets of millionaire executives and shareholders. This is what European colonialism looks like in the 21st century.

It’s up to all of us to help put a stop to it.

We recommend this article by 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben in the New Yorker magazine for more context on why fossil finance is key to stopping the climate crisis.

KEY TARGETS & CAMPAIGNS

This is what we’ve been working on.

Decisions about what comes next after the COVID-19 pandemic are already being made. The European Central Bank’s emergency response must ensure that people and the planet, not polluters, are at the heart of a just recovery in Europe and beyond. Instead of handouts for fossil fuels we must invest in an economy that cares for people and the planet.

Find out more

The Bank of England has the power to cut off the finance flows of UK money to polluting industries and fund the future we need.

We’re calling on the Bank of England Governor, Andrew Bailey: Stop funding the climate crisis and regulate the banks that do.

Sign the petition

The European Investment Bank (EIB) is the world’s biggest multilateral public bank. Each year it invests billions of euro of public EU money and its decisions on where this money flows can shape entire economies.

After years of campaigning by activists, grassroots groups and climate organisations the European Central Bank first announced in July 2019 that it was going fossil free! And there’s no doubt that public pressure played a major role in getting this commitment (the EIB itself said so!)

Find out more about how this his historical campaign win came about.

START TAKING ACTION

If there are no active climate groups where you live, you can set up your own group and start organising to take action. This video shows you how, in five easy steps:

RESOURCES TO TAKE ACTION

To really challenge the financial industry, we need powerful campaigns. 350.org has a wealth of resources to help you assemble healthy groups, craft powerful actions, and achieve meaningful change.

 

Get people to join your group

How to pick a target

Examples of tactics

How to spread the word

 

Still want more to read? Check out the excellent Climate Resistance Handbook for a comprehensive guide to taking climate action.

Or visit the 350.org Trainings hub for a truly overwhelming (we warned you!) number of online guides, trainings and resources.

WHAT ARE EUROPE’S BANKS REALLY FUNDING?

Fracking in Argentina

Fracking is banned in most of Europe, so European oil corporations Shell and Total, and HSBC and Deutsche Bank, took their dirty business to Vaca Muerta, Argentina. There, they exploit some of the biggest shale oil and gas reserves in the world. Fracking is destroying the environment and threatening the indigenous Mapuche people’s ancestral land and livelihood, despite their fierce opposition.

Shell and Total have both benefited from the European Central Bank’s bond-buying programme fueled with Covid-19 economic recovery funds.

FIND OUT MORE

 

Drilling in the Amazon

Shell was one of the fossil fuel companies that took part in an auction in Brazil in December, looking to buy the rights to drill on land held by indigenous communities and in some of the world’s most important environmental areas, including the Amazon rainforest. These projects trample on indigenous rights, destroy vulnerable ecosystems, and will further fuel the climate crisis.

Shell is one of several European fossil fuel companies that have benefitted from the European Central Bank’s bond-buying programme, which has been scaled up in response to the Covid19 pandemic.

FIND OUT MORE

Gas in Mozambique

The French oil giant Total is a driving force behind a fossil gas mega-project in Mozambique, alongside European banks like HSBC and BNP Paribas. It has already contributed to an increase in corruption and human rights abuses in the region, in addition to its impact on the climate crisis. While the negative impacts of the project will be mostly felt by communities in Mozambique, the profits will flow to rich shareholders in the global North.

The European Central Bank has been supporting Total through its Covid19 response programme, meaning that public money which should be helping countries recover from the pandemic is instead helping to fuel dangerous projects like this.

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Oil in East Africa

Total is the company behind the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline – a mega-project to extract and transport oil for export. Other than filling Total executives’ pockets with dirty profits, the construction of the pipeline will displace local communities in Uganda and Tanzania, destroy protected natural reserves, wreck farmlands and local people’s lives and livelihoods, contaminate local water sources and further fuel the burning climate crisis.

All this with the support of European Central Bank’s Covid-19 recovery funding, some of which has benefited Total through ECB’s unrestricted bond buying programme.

FIND OUT MORE

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