“We are on a fast track to climate disaster.” – Antonio Guterres, General Secretary of the UN
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is publishing it’s report on how to avoid the unprecedented heatwaves, terrifying storms, and widespread water shortages that we’re currently on track for. They’re saying that existing and planned fossil fuel projects are more than the climate can handle. And that we must do everything we can to keep under 1.5C warming this century. We’re currently projected to hit 3.2C.
The latest @IPCC_CH report is a litany of broken climate promises.
Some government & business leaders are saying one thing, but doing another.
They are lying.
It is time to stop burning our planet. https://t.co/xzccxqwvhE
— António Guterres (@antonioguterres) April 4, 2022
It’s grim reading. But the report keeps stating that with radical change, it is still possible to avert the very worst of climate disaster. Part of that means cutting off all money flowing into fossil fuel production. Unfortunately, major banks around the world are continuing to pour trillions (yes, with a “t”) of dollars into fossil fuels. Their empty promises, greenwashing and lies are putting millions of lives at risk.
Over the last 6 years, the world’s 60 biggest banks have poured $4,600,000,000,000 into fossil fuel projects. Banks are hugely responsible for accelerating climate change, rather than taking steps to invest in greener, healthier, safer energy.
This is why millions of us around the world are pushing banks to clean up their act.
Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director, Indigenous Environmental Network:
“This latest report, though reinforcing the urgency for climate action, sadly also uplifts market-based scams as solutions, thereby promoting the ongoing colonization of Indigenous peoples and our homelands. Projects such as carbon capture, solar radiation management and carbon pricing merely represent another money-making frontier for setters and colonizers. It is a horrific expansion of a deeply flawed, unjust and unethical system. We call on the IPCC and world leaders to listen to Indigenous Peoples and Mother Earth to focus their future western research projects on keeping fossil fuels in the ground and rapidly declining fossil fuel production overall.”
Richard Brooks, Stand.earth Climate Finance Campaign Director:
“Banks, insurance companies, and institutional investors like pension funds are the great enablers of the exact climate chaos this IPCC report is warning us against. By financing fossil fuel companies, our financial institutions are bankrolling the continued production and burning of coal, oil, and gas — driving up methane and carbon pollution at the very time the IPCC report tells us we need to do the exact opposite: urgently and rapidly slash emissions, and invest in climate solutions. Fossil fuel financing from the world’s 60 largest banks has reached nearly USD $4.6 trillion in the six years since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, with $742 billion in 2021 alone.”
Read the full report here: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/
Or read the BBC article here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-60984663