COP26 protests: Extinction Rebellion hold demonstration before JP Morgan Chase building
2 November 2021
Members of Extinction Rebellion gathered before the offices of JP Morgan Chase in Glasgow today to protest against the investment bank’s record on climate change.
A group of protesters assembled near the city’s central station as COP26 negotiations continue in Glasgow and made their way down to the bank’s office on Waterloo Street playing drums before joining the crowd that was already present.
A number of activists spoke to JP Morgan’s funding of fossil fuel activities, which demonstrator Bhavini Patel called “disastrous for the planet and the people whose lives they’ve been ravaging in the name of profit. These lands are where? In the Global South.”
The group’s Red Rebels, a street performance element of the movement, also stood before the bank’s entrance following opening addresses.
Many Red Rebels travelled to Glasgow from around the United Kingdom to take part in COP26-related demonstrations.
According to the Years Project, JP Morgan Chase has allocated $196 billion to the fossil fuel industry since the international Paris climate agreement was passed.
The US investment bank just last month joined the United Nations’ Net-Zero Banking Alliance, although it had received criticism for not doing so sooner as the initiative launched in April. It also launched a 10-year financing target to support sustainable development earlier this year.
The Green News reached out to JP Morgan Chase for comment but the bank declined to provide one.
Previous JP Morgan Chase climate campaigns
In early 2020, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon was the subject of the #StopTheMoneyPipleine campaign led by the The Years Project that urged the investment bank to end its fossil fuel activities.
According to the latest fossil fuel finance report titled “Banking on Climate Chaos” authored by a number of environmental organisations, JP Morgan Chase “remains the world’s worst banker of fossil fuels between 2016 and 2020, though its funding did drop significantly last year”.
The report also named the bank as one of the biggest funders of oil and gas in the Arctic and of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG). Chase was also deemed to be one of the banks “dominating” fracking finance, according to the authors.
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