{"id":48919,"date":"2023-07-25T10:05:56","date_gmt":"2023-07-25T09:05:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatechangenews.com\/?p=48919"},"modified":"2023-07-25T16:01:43","modified_gmt":"2023-07-25T15:01:43","slug":"amazon-rainforest-oil-gas-banks-jpmorgan-hsbc-citibank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.climatechangenews.com\/2023\/07\/25\/amazon-rainforest-oil-gas-banks-jpmorgan-hsbc-citibank\/","title":{"rendered":"Pressure grows on governments and banks to stop supporting Amazon oil and gas\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

South American nations and international financial institutions are coming under increasing pressure to stop exploiting oil and gas in the Amazon ahead of key political talks in Brazil.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Leaders will be meeting next month at the Amazon Summit in Bel\u00e9m, a city also due to <\/span>host the Cop30 climate talks in 2025<\/span><\/a>, to discuss <\/span>the 45-year-old <\/span>Amazon Cooperation Treaty<\/span><\/a> for the first time in several years. <\/span><\/p>\n

The final guest list is not yet clear, but nations across Latin America are expected to be represented as well as some from Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has rebooted the summit in the hope of using it to <\/span>build support<\/span><\/a> for his commitment to end illegal deforestation in the Amazon by 2030, but curbing fossil fuel extraction <\/span>does not appear to be on the agenda<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

G20 divisions<\/strong> over key climate goals pile pressure on Cop28 hosts<\/span><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

However, a grassroots campaign led by Indigenous groups and civil society argues such a move is essential to combat climate change, and to protect biodiversity and the Indigenous people that live there<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The campaign builds on an existing <\/span>effort to get a global pact<\/span><\/a> for the permanent protection of four-fifths of Amazonia by 2025. Focusing specifically on oil and gas, it calls for an Amazon exclusion zone where no fossil fuels can be exploited, in line with the International Energy Agency\u2019s (IEA) <\/span>warning<\/span><\/a> that there can be no new fossil fuel projects if the world is to stay under a 1.5\u00b0C warming threshold.<\/span><\/p>\n

Domestic exploitation<\/h3>\n

A number of South American countries in which the Amazon rainforest lies have been trying to boost domestic oil and gas exploration and extraction in recent years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Peru is <\/span>proposing to place 31 oil blocks<\/span><\/a> over 435 indigenous communities, while Bolivia <\/span>recently finalised an \u2018Upstream Reactivation Plan\u2019<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the result of a <\/span>forthcoming Ecuadorian referendum<\/span><\/a> about oil exploitation in the <\/span>Yasun\u00ed rainforest will be hugely significant for that part of the Amazon but will also send a wider message about the region\u2019s priorities.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Brazil, <\/span>a far-right Congress<\/span><\/a> is <\/span>proposing to gut the powers<\/span><\/a> of both the ministries of the environment and Indigenous peoples, throwing Lula\u2019s deforestation pledge into doubt.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Brazilian president\u2019s own ambitions of positioning himself as climate leader have also been called into question <\/span>over his stance on an oil drilling project<\/span><\/a> at the mouth of the Amazon river. He recently said he <\/span>found it “difficult”<\/span><\/a> to believe that oil exploration in the Amazon basin would damage the region’s rainforest.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Ahead of the Amazon Summit, Indigenous groups will be meeting in Brazil to share fossil fuel resistance strategies, with the support of campaign group 350.org.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFrom this we hope will come a very powerful document that will inform the discussions of the presidents in <\/span>Bel\u00e9m<\/span>,\u201d said Ilan Zugman, 350.org\u2019s Latin America managing director. \u201cHopefully it will have some very strong messages saying no new fossil fuel projects in the Amazon.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Petro’s lead<\/h3>\n

Zugman said Colombian president Gustavo Petro had been a \u201cvery loud voice\u201d in support of this idea. In January, Petro announced a halt in all new oil and gas exploration contracts, keeping 380 currently active contracts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In a recent <\/span>opinion piece<\/span><\/a> for the Miami Herald, Petro called on Amazon countries and their partners in the Global North to follow him on ending all new oil and gas exploration in the Amazon. <\/span><\/p>\n

He said that, while ending deforestation was \u201cfundamental\u201d, it had to be accompanied by \u201can ambitious transnational policy to phase out fossil fuels\u201d. Oil, gas and coal accounts for about half<\/a> of all Colombian exports.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dozens of oil & industry<\/strong> lobbyists attended secretive shipping emissions talks<\/span><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Petro said some countries, like Colombia, could allocate a \u201csubstantial amount of resources\u201d to protect the Amazon.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But he stressed that curbing oil and gas exploitation would have a big economic impact on poorer South American nations and called on countries like the US to help with financial mechanisms such as <\/span>debt-for-climate swaps<\/span><\/a>, a multilateral fund that funds environmental protection services by inhabitants of these territories, or the kind of financial reforms being progressed by the <\/span>Bridgetown initiative<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At a recent meeting, the Colombian and Brazilian presidents <\/span>pledged to cooperate<\/span><\/a> to protect the Amazon but the latter did not appear to make any concessions on oil and gas.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to convince other presidents like Lula.. to step up as well and really play this leadership role,\u201d said Zugman, \u201cto not allow fossil fuel exploration in one of the most important places of the world.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Banking spotlight<\/h3>\n

Campaigners are also stepping up pressure on financial institutions to stop financing oil and gas projects in the region.<\/span><\/p>\n

A report<\/span>, <\/b>published today <\/a>by NGO Stand.earth and the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA), shows that US$20 billion has been provided to explore and exploit reserves in Peru, Colombia, Brazil and Ecuador over the past 15 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

More than half of this (US$11 billion) came from just eight banks: JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Ita\u00fa Unibanco, HSBC, Santander, Bank of America, Banco Bradesco and Goldman Sachs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Six of these banks are either headquartered in the US or act through their US subsidiary and operate in deals across the region, while the two Brazilian companies – Ita\u00fa Unibanco and Banco Bradesco – are highly connected to specific oil and gas projects in that country.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The report is accompanied by a <\/span>database<\/span><\/a> of all the banks involved in Amazon oil and gas through directly traceable and indirect financing, for example by providing loans or underwriting bond deals for upstream and midstream development and transport of oil and gas in Amazonia.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The EU-Mercosur<\/strong> trade deal will harm Brazil\u2019s indigenous communities<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

JPMorgan Chase tops the list, having directly provided US$1.9 billion in direct financing to oil and gas in the region over the past decade and a half. <\/span><\/p>\n

Together with HSBC, it was a major backer of Petroper\u00fa\u2019s Talara refinery expansion project, which is <\/span>driving the exploitation of oil<\/span><\/a> on Indigenous land in the Peruvian Amazon.<\/span><\/p>\n

JPMorgan Chase has <\/span>ruled out support<\/span><\/a> for the highly controversial <\/span>East African Crude Oil Pipeline project<\/span><\/a>, but made no such commitment on <\/span>oil and gas activity in the Amazon or wider fossil fuel expansion.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n