Joint News Release: 28 major banks warned not to finance Trans Mountain pipeline expansion
This week, over 20 Indigenous and environmental organizations
delivered an open letter to 28 major banks, calling on them to back away
from funding the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project (TMEP).
The warning letter
urges banks to avoid the reputational and financial risk of supporting
this destructive project, which is incompatible with realizing the goals
of the Paris Climate Agreement and respecting human rights, especially
those detailed in the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous
Peoples.
“Mark my words, Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion
project will never see the light of day,” said Grand Chief Stewart
Phillip, President of the Union of the BC Indian Chiefs. “We do not
accept the unscrupulous liability of dirty oil coming through any
pipeline system to benefit some Texans or multinational interests at the
expense of our inherent responsibilities to our grandchildren’s
grandchildren.”
The Trans Mountain Expansion Project would not only triple Trans
Mountain’s capacity — transporting an additional 590,000 barrels of
crude oil each day — it would lock in expanded production of one of the
most carbon-intensive oils, Alberta tar sands oil.
The 28 banks are the 14
banks that underwrote the Kinder Morgan Canada IPO (Bank of America,
Bank of Montreal, Barclays, Canadian and Imperial Bank of Commerce,
Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial
Group, Mizuho Financial Group, National Bank of Canada, Royal Bank of
Canada, Scotiabank, Société Générale, and Toronto-Dominion Bank); and 14
other banks participating in current and past Kinder Morgan revolving
credit facilities (BayernLB, BBVA, BNP Paribas, BPCE/Natixis, Citigroup,
Crédit Agricole, DNB ASA, ING, Morgan Stanley, Regions Bank, Sumitomo
Mitsui Financial Group, SunTrust, UBS, and Wells Fargo).
“We’re making it loud and clear that banks need to back off from
funding Trans Mountain,” says Lindsey Allen, Executive Director of
Rainforest Action Network. “Any bank that decides to participate in this
project will be implicated in Indigenous rights violations and will
knowingly feed fuel to the fire of climate chaos. They won't be able to
claim that they didn’t have all the relevant information.”
The existing Trans Mountain pipeline has sprung 82 recorded spills,
including four major spills since Kinder Morgan bought the pipeline in
2005. Future spills, from a massively expanded pipeline, would endanger
local sources of drinking water.
“As banks consider financing Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Expansion
tar sands pipeline, they should know that the over 120 First Nations
and Tribes that have signed the
Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion
will not let this project happen, says Grand Chief Serge Simon of the
Mohawk Council of Kanesatake on behalf of the Treaty Alliance Against
Tar Sands Expansion. “Indigenous and allied resistance to the pipeline
will not be limited to BC either – it will be all over Turtle Island and
will also target the banks that chose to ignore our opposition.”
As with the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), a highly controversial
project constructed without the free, prior, and informed consent of the
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion poses
a grave threat to Indigenous rights. First Nations that would be
directly impacted by the route and port terminal are fighting the
project in the courts and leading robust protests on the ground.
“Until banks honor the right to Free Prior and Informed Consent of
indigenous people — including the Dené, Cree, Metis, and Athabasca
Chipewyan First Nation — we will continue to call on municipal and
foreign governments to divest from these banks,” says Jacqueline Fielder
of
Mazaska Talks.
With financing for Kinder Morgan’s TMEP being finalized in the coming
weeks, the groups are urging the banks to heed the lessons learned from
DAPL and decline any additional involvement with Kinder Morgan that
would facilitate financing of the TMEP, particularly Kinder Morgan’s
planned C$5.5 billion credit facility.
“Tar sands oil is deadly, destructive, and economically infeasible,”
said Tara Houska, National Campaigns Director of Honor the Earth. “Banks
run on our money — we have a say in how it is invested. Without consent
of indigenous nations impacted by these projects, banks are supporting
sacrifice zones, while also actively contributing to climate change.
Invest in renewables and our future.”
Additional Statements:
Eriel Deranger, Director with Indigenous Climate Action:
“We are collectively responsible for achieving climate stabilization
in our lifetime. We must challenge the systems that brought us to where
we are, or suffer the consequences of our inaction. Tar sands
development, and all of its associated infrastructure, are a byproduct
of an antiquated economic system that propagates and supports climate
chaos while devaluing and dehumanizing Indigenous rights and culture. We
must not let money, and the banks that control our money, dictate our
futures any longer. It’s time to demand real change and action on
climate today.”
Eugene Kung, Barrister & Solicitor at West Coast Environmental Law:
“The material legal, political and reputational risk facing Kinder
Morgan’s pipeline and tanker project means that this is not your average
pipeline investment. Investors should be aware of the significant
uncertainty surrounding the project the associated risks for anyone
invested in it. Kinder Morgan’s pipeline and tanker project does not
have the consent of affected First Nations, who have banned it in their
unextinguished Indigenous laws. This represents significant legal,
political and reputational risk that investors need to understand.”
Clayton Thomas-Müller of the Mathias Colomb First Nation, and Campaigner at 350.org:
“The extraction and production of tar sands oil not only spreads
climate chaos across the planet, it has been killing Dené, Cree and
Métis people in Northern Alberta through cancer and the poisoning of
their water and food systems. Banks that fund tar sands infrastructure
like Trans Mountain are writing death warrants for our people and the
world at large.”
Ben Smith, Field Organizing Manager with Greenpeace:
“The banks on this list have a choice. They can acknowledge the
material and reputational risk of investing in highly controversial
projects like the Trans Mountain Expansion Project (TMEP), or they can
continue their wishful thinking that the world won’t notice they are
contributing to the destruction of the environment, worsening climate
change, and violating Indigenous rights. The moral and economic sense to
move away from yesterday’s energy source has been acknowledged the
world over, and the emboldened movement to stand up to big oil is
building unprecedented strength. The time has come for financial
companies to end their relationship with destructive companies like
Kinder Morgan and stand with the people and the planet.
Tom BK Goldtooth, Executive Director, Indigenous Environmental Network
“Our prophecies tell us that life on Mother Earth, as we know it, is
in danger and coming to a great transformation. The time is now for
banks to divest from an economy based on industrial extraction,
production and combustion of fossil fuels and its environmentally risky
transportation infrastructures. Investment policy changes are urgently
needed that recognize the health and vitality of Earth’s living systems,
ecological and social well-being and the rights of Indigenous Peoples.”
Lucie Pinson, private finance campaigner at Friends of the Earth France:
“European banks are not going to be spared from the mobilization in
support of indigenous people against tar sands and other fossil fuels
projects in North America. Banks which fail to stay clear from
financing, directly or indirectly these projects will be targeted. In
France, we expect Crédit Agricole, who stated during its general
assembly to have rejected providing project finance to the Keystone XL,
to also reject directly financing Trans Mountain and other tar sands
pipelines. But only blacklisting the companies behind these pipelines
will guarantee no support is given to these fatal projects.”
Sven Biggs, Climate and Energy Campaigner with Stand.earth:
“Bankers that are considering investing this project should know that
the people of British Columbia do not want this pipeline. Already tens
of thousands people have pledged to stand with First Nations and do
whatever it takes to stop Kinder Morgan.”
Hannah McKinnon of Oil Change International
"New tar sands infrastructure is incompatible with a safe climate,
the world is in a deep hole and the first thing we need to do is stop
digging. This pipeline is the epitome of risky: First Nations don't want
it, the Province of British Columbia doesn't want it, the climate can't
afford it, and the sector that it is being built for doesn't need it."
Vanessa Green, Director, DivestInvest Individual
"At this stage, the financing relationships are exposed and the
financial and other risks of putting money into fossil fuel
infrastructure are clear. To not recognize them, as an executive or an
investor amounts to some combination of negligence, laziness, bad
business and moral bankruptcy. What is less clear is which of these
banks will gain the most by tapping into the massive global consumer
interest in investing where our energy opportunities align with a social
conscience."
Regine Richter of Urgewald
“Some banks participating in DAPL may have wished they hadn’t. They
now have a chance to show they learned their lesson and refrain from
getting involved in Trans Mountain. If they don’t and help financing it,
they manifest their total ignorance towards climate, environment and
human rights.”
Lena Moffitt, Senior Campaign Director, Our Wild America Campaign - Sierra Club
"Tar sands expansion is disastrous for land, water, climate, and
communities. If big banks support this toxic and destructive industry,
they are betraying the people who entrust them with their money. We
stand with Indigenous communities in urging financial institutions not
to finance the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion or any other dangerous
tar sands project."
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appreciated: www.CoastProtectors.ca/donate.
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