The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is showing the world how to fight climate change in their brave blockade against the North Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL). But for the big banks who fund major polluters, it’s still business as usual.
Thousands have peacefully gathered to stop a 570,000 barrel-per-day pipeline that would endanger the ancestral lands of the Standing Rock Sioux. Investing in such major fossil fuel infrastructure would continue to lock us into a climate-busting carbon economy for decades -- but that’s exactly what Bank of America is trying to do.
BoA has actually pledged to go fully carbon neutral by 2020. That’s great, but it’s also committed to lending $350 million to the DAPL’s financing. Unless BoA actually moves money away from polluters, all these commitments won’t mean a thing.
Tell Bank of America you want real climate commitment. Demand it divests from the Dakota Access Pipeline.
While the courageous resistance at Standing Rock has captured the nation’s imagination, it’s also an astonishing example of how much power the banks have when it comes to our changing climate. $3.75 of the $3.8 billion it costs to build the pipeline is on credit. Without that capital, quite simply, there is no pipeline.
What we are bearing witnessing to at Standing Rock is a moment of history. Thousands are literally putting their bodies on the line to keep our world, our water, our soil and our air safe. We can’t all stand up in solidarity in North Dakota, but we can make their jobs a whole lot easier.
We could feel that power when tens of thousands of SumOfUs members raised their voice and stopped the Keystone XL pipeline cold. It’s happening again -- let’s bring Bank of America to the right side of history.
Stop the money, stop a pipeline. It’s that simple. Tell Bank of America to divest now.
More information
LA Times. 13 September 2016.
Food and Water Watch. 6 September 2016.