Opinion: Break the cash to carbon connection

By GRACE MATTERN

Published: 03-21-2023 10:28 AM

Grace Mattern of Northwood is a writer, artist, social justice activist, and member of Third Act.

Like most Americans, I’m concerned about climate change and the drastic weather events it’s causing. As an outdoor enthusiast, I’m dismayed by our warming winters and the loss of traditional activities like cross-country skiing and skating on nearby lakes and ponds.

But changes like that are benign compared to the rapid increase in deadly storms, wildfires, and flooding. It’s hard to ignore how harmful and dangerous it is to continue burning fossil fuels to power our lifestyles.

A Pew Research Center survey in January 2022 found that 69% of Americans favor the United States striving to become carbon neutral by 2050. The development of alternative energy sources, rather than expanding the production of fossil fuels, is favored by the same percentage.

Those of us who are older can’t help but ask what kind of planet we’re leaving to our children and grandchildren and what can we do to reverse current trends? If you want to help transition our world to carbon neutral energy sources what are your options for action?

Paying attention to the cash to carbon connection is one answer. Some banks have far worse records for funding the continued expansion of fossil fuels and do very little to finance alternative energy sources such as wind and solar. If you do business with one of those banks, your cash is turned into carbon by the fossil fuel corporations financed by those banks.

If you don’t want your cash supporting further expansion of fossil fuels, consider boycotting Wells Fargo, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Citibank. These four national banks are the biggest funders of the fossil fuel industry. Together they account for over one quarter of the $4.6 trillion total financing for fossil fuels by the top 60 global banks between 2016 and 2021.

Already, thousands of customers and potential customers have pledged to move their money out of these four banks if the banks won’t move their investments out of fossil fuels.

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Many Americans in the over-60 demographic have a lot of money sitting in financial institutions. Older Americans are disproportionately wealthy, holding 70% of the wealth in this country when they represent just 17% of the population. Banks depend on these wealthy customers for their business.

What if those of us over 60 began to demand that banks stop funding fossil fuels and start financing alternative energy, or we’ll take our business elsewhere?

We can use the power of our choice of banks to reflect where we stand on climate change. If we want to help ensure our children and grandchildren won’t have to live through the climate chaos that a continued reliance on fossil fuel use will bring, then we need to do our business with banks who have real commitments to expanding alternative energy sources such as wind and solar.

While Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America have verbally committed to help reach the global target of net zero emissions by 2050, none have published a credible transition plan or ruled out fossil fuel financing for expanding projects.

By contrast, some European banks are making these commitments. In December, Europe’s largest bank, HSBC, announced it would no longer finance new oil and gas projects. Danske, a Danish bank, has committed to stop financing oil and gas projects and financing of fossil fuel corporations.

Besides continued financing of the fossil fuel industry, Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America have dismally low levels of financing of renewable energy. Just 2% of financial backing by Chase and Citibank for energy companies went to renewable energy activities between 2016 and 2022.

We do have the power to make a difference in how climate change affects the lives of our children and grandchildren. For those of us over 60, let’s put our money into banks that will help to build a better tomorrow.

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