Fridays For Future activists host a parody press conference of the Standard Chartered Bank, calling out the bank’s role in fueling the climate crisis.
Clean Up Standard Chartered Bank – A Fridays for Future Campaign
Ahead of the Annual General Meeting of Standard Chartered Bank on May 11th, a group of Fridays For Future activists organized a press conference imitating those conducted by the Standard Chartered Bank. They used it to comment on the fact that the bank is a significant UK investor in the fossil fuel industry.
For the copied website and graphic materials from the conference, please visit this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_xvXB5mE0tdLJmd_l1L6W9XxfLJCEsFCoRelBveRRz4/edit#
According to an invitation sent to journalists, the press conference was called by Standard Chartered to announce their new climate and coal policy. In the initial press release journalists would have read that: “Standard Chartered PLC “the Group” will announce further steps that it is taking to meet its commitment to support the Paris Agreement on climate change, through updates to its coal policy.”
In the conference, which the activists called the “Annual General Mourning for the planet and Standard Chartered’s Sustainability Page”, a video was played showing CEO Bill Winters discussing the bank’s renewed climate commitments.
“At No Standards Chartered, we believe that money can be a force for pure evil- funding destruction, killing the planet, and contributing to the death of its inhabitants. Which is why we’ve committed $24 billion into coal, oil and gas companies already since the Paris Agreement, especially in parts of the world impacted the most by climate change. ” Commented Leonie Bremer, a Fridays For Future activist from Germany, enacting a bank official.
This was followed by the activists revealing the prank. The activists officially spoke about how the bank is harming the environment and is financing the destruction of most affected communities. The group accused the bank of being a “climate killer”, having invested over $24 billion into fossil fuel companies operating predominantly in the Global South or MAPA* (*Most Affected Peoples and Areas) since the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015.
Activists demanded Standard Chartered to stop financing fossil fuels by this year and will accept nothing less.
“The biggest prank of all really is how Standard Chartered claims to be #HereForGood. Their current policies are laughable so we decided to spend half a day in their shoes. Tomorrow they’ll have their Annual General Meeting and as shareholders in our planet, in our collective survival and future, we believe we have a stake in what goes on at these meetings. Standard Chartered Bank is a custodian of what should be intergenerational wealth, our wealth. It is funding our death sentences, continuing to write cheques to the fossil fuel industry that we’ll never cash. They make it seem like it’s so hard to prioritize people and the planet but really it’s so much harder to pretend to be bankers who are ignoring the truth and choosing profit over our lives. ” Expressed Mitzi Jonelle Tan, a Fridays For Future activist from the Philippines.
#CleanUpStandardChartered is a global campaign that demands Standard Chartered Bank – UK’s coal bank- to stop financing any companies that build new fossil fuel infrastructure such as new coal-fired power plants, mining, etc. by the end of 2021 and for the bank to provide recovery bills as reparation to the communities who are impacted by the already existing coal projects that they have supported.
Fridays for Future:
https://fridaysforfuture.org/cleanupstandardchartered/
https://twitter.com/fridays4future?s=11
https://instagram.com/fridaysforfuture?igshid=iivj7t19z26h
Fridays for Future MAPA:
https://twitter.com/fffmapa?s=11
https://instagram.com/fridaysforfuturemapa?igshid=1epzrvlj504t9