The protest is a reaction to CommBank’s latest multi-million dollar advertising campaign about securing certainty for the future, and follows new research revealing a sharp decline in coal-fired power plants under development worldwide.
Since the Paris Agreement was signed in December 2015, CommBank has loaned more money to fossil fuels than any other Australian bank.
“It’s laughable that CommBank CEO, Ian Narev, claims to support action on climate change but at the same time his bank loans billions of dollars to fossil fuel projects, making dangerous global warming worse,” said Greenpeace campaigner Nikola Casule. “We’re urging CommBank to stop funding coal projects. With the Great Barrier Reef bleaching for the second year in a row, there’s no time to lose,” he said.
In a reversal of the bank’s own advertising, dozens of CommBank customers queued up outside a nearby CommBank branch to ask their own questions about the future.
Pacific climate change spokesperson Joseph Zane Sikulu, said:
“The Commonwealth Bank is the largest single lender to the industry that is causing the destruction of Pacific countries. I’m here to call on CommBank to rule out investing in fossil fuels. Until then, Pacific people should pull their savings out of CommBank,” he said.
“CommBank hasn’t publicly committed to not financing the Carmichael coal mine - the biggest proposed coal mine in Australia and a project that must not go ahead if we’re to win the fight against climate change. If we’re to have any chance of stopping the worst effects of global warming, banks like CommBank have to stop financing fossil fuels,” said CEO of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, Kate Smolski.
The community action was one of hundreds of events that took place around the world as part of theBreak Free movement – a global wave of people taking a stand against dirty energy.
CommBank is due to release its 2017 policy on climate change within the next few months.
For interviews contact:
Elsa Evers, Greenpeace Media Advisor, 0438 204 041, elsa.evers@greenpeace.org
Simon Black, Greenpeace Senior Media Campaigner, 0418 219 086, simon.black@greenpeace.org
Images and video available from 9.30am via Dropbox: https://goo.gl/eS95WU(Photo credit is James Alcock/Greenpeace)
Break Free 2017 is supported by:
