Banksliding and CalPERSiflage – by Bill McKibben

Source: Banksliding and CalPERSiflage – by Bill McKibben

Now they’ve left behind that fantastical kingdom, however, and Gulfstreamed back to the mundane world where avarice rules. And so they’ve begun to, as it were, bankslide. A few developments:

1. Global banks have turned on the money spigot for big oil. GFANZ stalwart Chase Bank “has underwritten some $2.5 billion in bond deals for companies like Gazprom PJSC and Continental Resources Inc., equivalent to the same period in previous years,” while Wells Fargo has managed to double the amount of cash it’s handing over to the climate-wreckers.
2. Blackrock, world’s largest pile of cash, has decided to lead a group that will invest $15.5 billion in Saudi Arabia’s natural-gas pipelines as the kingdom, in Bloomberg’s words, “opens up more to foreign companies and looks to fund a huge increase in fossil-fuel production.”
3. And to make their greenwashing job a little easier, Exxon released another cloud of smoke, promising to reduce emissions 20 % by 2030. No, wait, they promised to reduce “Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions” by 20% by 2030, which is to say the emissions from their, operations, not their, you know, product. Look for a lot of electric Ford F-150 pickups prowling the Permian.

It’s very clear that these guys have not committed to the public good—that so far their words are worthless. All of which means, basically, that civil society has no option but push harder—much harder—on the financial system.