350 Wenatchee Climate Conversations NCW

Friends!

Here is the latest edition of the Stop the Money Pipeline Newsletter ― the one-stop shop to catch up on all the latest happenings, gossip, wins & losses in the world of climate finance campaigning. So, without further ado, here’s the lowdown on all that’s been happening in the coalition this month…

STANDING WITH BLACK LIVES

STMP has been uplifting and amplifying the Movement for Black Lives. We’ve sent multiple emails to our list and are doing daily social media in support of Black Lives, including asking our base to donate to the Movement for Black Lives and Black Lives Matter. Charlie, our STMP Digital Coordinator, has been spending a portion of his STMP staff time working with the Movement for Black Lives volunteer digital team. We have endorsed and committed to support the Movement for Black Lives policy platform and list of current demands. Our Comms Team helped place this op-ed about why climate activists must support the demand to defund the police, and we have helped promote Mazaska Talks and Rainforest Action Network webinars about the fight to dismantle white supremacy.

STRATEGIC PLANNING 📝📝📝

We are still deep in planning the next stage of Stop the Money Pipeline! We are asking all coalition members to please fill out this survey. It should take you between 10 and 30 minutes. (kudos to those of you who already have!)

The next opportunity to engage in our strategic planning process is to join the next Coalition Call, Thursday, June 25 at 9PST/12EST. You should have already received a calendar invite to this call.

You will hear much more from us about our strategic planning real soon ― including dates for a virtual planning retreat ― but for now it would be super helpful if you could please, please fill out the strategy survey!

CAMPAIGN UPDATES 🔥🌍❤

Insure our Future: Globally, the insurance campaign adopted a new demand set last week, calling on the industry to stop insuring fossil fuel expansion and phase out fossil fuel business in line with 1.5ºC. Alongside the demands, we released a report on the top oil and gas insurers worldwide, which found that the majority are North American. No surprises there.

We’re turning up the heat on Liberty Mutual to meet these big demands. Dozens of legislators from Massachusetts called on the insurer to #StopTheMoneyPipeline, and a new report found that Liberty is a top advertiser on Fox News programs, spreading disinformation about COVID-19 and climate change (and now racist lies about the nationwide protests in defense of black lives). Leaked documents also revealed that Liberty Mutual is insuring the Adani Carmichael coal mine in Australia. Less than 24 hours after the story broke, Liberty Mutual categorically ruled out further insurance of the mine – a testament to the power of our movement! We’re now ramping up pressure to get Liberty Mutual to rule out renewing its insurance policy for the Trans Mountain pipeline and respect Indigenous rights. Stay tuned for more details on that.

BlackRock’s Big Problem: After wrapping up an exciting shareholder season with hot air balloon actions in four cities and a People’s Assembly, the BlackRock’s Big Problem campaign network has been focused on supporting the Juneteenth mobilization efforts across the US while also assessing how to better integrate racial justice partners, campaign targets, and strategies in the long term.

On Monday – #WorldRainforestDay – the campaign issued a set of baseline principles for an asset manager deforestation policy, and called on BlackRock to adopt a strong policy ahead of fire season in the Amazon, Indonesia, and other tropical forests. The top principle for such a policy: Full respect for indigenous rights and sovereignty!

Chase campaign: The Chase campaign is also moving into a planning phase, selecting our key tactics for the year ahead. There’s no shortage of ideas in the hopper: Adopting executives, employee organizing, mass mobilizations,  pressuring state treasurers, pushing museums to cut ties with Chase, mass card cutting actions are just a few of the tactics that are getting us excited for the years ahead.

Meanwhile, an important report came out detailing Chase Bank’s racist lending practices: In Chicago, JPMorgan Chase has lent 41x more money in white neighborhoods than Black neighborhoods since 2012. For every dollar the bank loaned in white neighborhoods, it invested just 2.4 cents in the city’s Black communities.

In response, an emergent Black-led coalition in Chicago is now asking Chase Bank for reparations and calling for actions at Chase branches around the city. The demands are for Chase to give Black neighborhoods $1 billion in grants and $10 billion in loans to support homebuyer assistance, small business start-ups and the creation of a Black-owned bank. Rising Tide Chicago, a key partner in the Chase campaign, informed us of this development and has outreached to the coalition to offer support.

Climate-Safe Pensions Network: Members of the Climate-Safe Pensions Network have been building connections locally and increasing their anti-racist work to support the movement for Black Lives. Here are some recent highlights of their work:

• Shift (Canada) recently launched an organizing campaign and an action tool for teachers targeting the ($200 CAD Billions) Ontario Teachers Pension Plan. Shift has also been calling out Alberta’s public pension manager AIMCo over its purchase of the Coastal Gas Link (fracked gas) pipeline in op-eds and articles.

• Fossil Free California issued a CalPERS Climate Report Card and reported on financial losses from oil, tar sands and fracking at CalSTRS and CalPERS (here and here)

• Divest NJ recently re-introduced legislation in the NJ Senate and Assembly, calling for divestment of the top 200 fossil fuel companies. They have a lobby week coming up starting June 22 and have already got their first new sponsor!

• Divest NY continues to build support for the New York State Fossil Fuel Divestment Act. There are now 32 Senate sponsors (a majority) and 60 Assembly sponsors (10 short of a majority).

Divest-Ed & Campus Organizing:  The campus fossil fuel divestment movement is centering the demands of the M4BL at this time, working with prison and police divestment campus groups, and centering anti-racism in their work. Additionally, the Divest Ed 2020 Fellowship launched, where twelve student organizers are spending the summer training, relationship building, and working on projects for the campus divestment movement.

WORK TEAM UPDATES 💯👷🌍

Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Team: Meets bi-weekly on Thursdays please email volunteer@350colorado.org to join We are currently working on retreat proposals and content as well as resources for partner groups such as a glossary of terms used in anti-oppression training and unpacking implicit biases.

Webinar Team: The webinar team is hosting two great webinars in the next week!

What: STMP Webinar: Arts Action  During a Pandemic: From virtual to safe street actions with David Solnit – 350.org and Amy Gray – Stop the Money Pipeline
When: June 27th at 2pm EST/12pm MST/11am PST
Where: Zoom – Register here

What: STMP Film screening of award winning documentary The Condor & The Eagle with a great panel discussion and Q&A with filmmaker Clement Guerra
When: July 5th T7pm EST/5pmMST/4pm PST
Where: Zoom – Register here

Please join us for these webinars yourself, and help spread the work with your supporters!

Policy Team: Continues its groundbreakingly awesome work, including…

• Our team submitted input focused on getting the financial industry out of fossil fuels to the Senate Democrats’ Special Committee on the Climate Crisis, which had solicited input on things Congress should do to address climate change.

• BlackRock actually voted the right way on some things at Exxon and Chevron!?? BLK campaign response here and Majority Action response here. Tl; dr: some decent votes at those companies, but plenty of other bad votes elsewhere, it seems.

• ReWIND Act – We’re still pushing for this bill! STMP member groups like FOE will be organizing virtual lobby days in July to push Members of Congress to support the bill – more info to come soon

• Federal Reserve bailouts: The Fed recently announced yet more expansions to the eligibility for its Main St Lending program, in ways that yet again appear to respond to requests from the oil and gas industry and their allies. The good news: our messaging is working and getting through – a lot of coverage of this lifts up our talking points!

• The policy team is increasing our work to more fully and better incorporate racial justice into our work. To that end, we encourage everyone (not just on the policy team!) to read this new proposal for a regenerative economy from Climate Justice Alliance and allies!

Partnerships Team: Meets Bi-weekly on Monday at 2pm MST – email Amy — volunteer@350colorado.org — to join

Youth Pledge Team: Earth Guardians, Future Coalition, Divest-Ed, the Power Shift Network are continuing to push out the Youth Pledge to Never Bank at Chase. Pledge here. Toolkit here.

Communications Team: The communications group is taking a break from pushing our own messaging from STMP and instead amplifying the voices of our allies in the Black Lives Matter movement and climate justice community, while exploring the connections between the fight for racial justice and our work to stop the money pipeline. You can reference our STMP statement on the killing of George Floyd and uprising against white supremacy and police violence here, read Alec’s piece on defunding the police, check out this Common Dreams reprint of the powerful speech that Rev Yearwood gave at our first action at a Chase Bank branch in January, or read the short list of talking points we prepared around this current moment. We also highly recommend 350.org‘s Tamara Toles O’Laughlin’s excellent essay in Grist!

Whew, as ever it’s a testament to our shared power how much is moving in this coalition.

Thanks to all who read this far. And to close with a reminder about the strategy behind this work: Last week, the Wall Street Journal wrote about how banks, “under pressure from climate activists” are now wholesale cutting loans that are a vital “lifeline” to the shale industry, and that many shale companies may not be able to continue as a result

I think the Wall Street Journal is saying that when you stop the flow of money, you stop the flow of oil.

I hope y’all are staying well, rooted, and fierce.

– Alec

PS: Do you have feedback for me about this newsletter? Or anything that you see in the coalition? Please let me know! Feedback is the only way we can learn to do this even better!