Rebels and Crusaders

By C O’Reilly

I was one of a group of XRI climate activists gathered at Sir John Rogerson’s Quay on Thursday 11th of July to protest at the annual 5k Docklands Race organised by Crusaders Athletic Club.

We were there to protest the sponsorship of this event by JP Morgan.  According to Forbes, JP Morgan Chase is the #1 fossil fuel financier in the world, committing $40.8 billion dollars to fossil fuel companies in 2023 alone.  This is despite warnings that an urgent phase- out of fossil fuels is required to avert global catastrophe.

Proceeds from the event are used to improve the club’s facilities and to promote sport, health and wellbeing in the community. One of the largest athletics clubs in Dublin, it serves Irishtown, Ringsend, Sandymount, and the Docklands area. Sadly, all these areas are at risk of falling below the annual flood level as early as 2030, according to Climate Central. Sea levels are rising due to global warming, to which fossil fuels are by far the largest contributor.

XRI reached out to the club last year with a letter about this sponsorship, but got no reply. However, during this protest one of our rebels learnt that Crusaders have a multi-year sponsorship contract with JP Morgan. It is shameful that this thriving, supportive and inclusive club is being used for heartless and cynical sportswashing.

We set ourselves up near the starting line with upwards of 1,700 runners gathered in front of us, along with stewards and supporters. The evening was dry, a little cool, with a light breeze - perfect for the runners. The Liffey flowed by, wide and majestic, through the mouth of the bay and onto the Irish sea. Our loud and colourful show with its iconic XR flags, rhythmic drumbeats and sinister Grim Reaper added a colourful carnival atmosphere to the occasion. The excitement and anticipation were palpable. We had no wish to spoil their fun, but we had an important message to deliver about their sponsors.

Via loudspeaker just before the race got going, our message was read out: we wanted them to enjoy their race; but we were there to ask them to stop taking sponsorship from JP Morgan because of their funding of fossil fuels.  Financing by big finance and insurance companies has enabled greenhouse gas emissions to rise for decades.

We reminded them that climate breakdown is already causing death and destruction in many places around the world and has been disproportionately affecting people in the global south, people who have contributed least to the problem.  We need drastic cuts in fossil fuels to save lives and protect future generations, not just elsewhere but here in Ireland too.   We had devastating floods in Middleton last year, and too much rain this spring prevented many Irish farmers from planting their crops.  

Our messaging was backed up by our banner and by information leaflets handed out to the crowd. Watching their reaction, I got the impression that many had given little thought to the business of their sponsors. This also proved to be the experience of our outreach team, who found that the participants they engaged with had been unaware of their sponsors’ investments in fossil fuels.  A JP Morgan employee who was watching the race also claimed ignorance of his company’s connection to fossil fuels.

None of this is surprising.  You’re unlikely to find any mention of fossil fuels on JP Morgan’s website. Investments are complex and what company these days wants to boast about supporting the fossil fuel industry?  There were further opportunities for raising awareness and spreading much-needed information after the race, when we stationed ourselves beyond the finish line outside JP Morgan bank. 

Anxiety and fear are natural responses when it seems that the dire warnings of scientists and trusted leaders are disregarded, when life reverts to “business as usual”.  It is such a relief to meet with others who care, who are willing to get out and protest, who are not afraid to speak truth to power. All in all, a worthwhile protest, both for its vital raising of awareness, and for the mutual support which participation in an XRI protest provides. And the drummers were great!

Photographs by Alessandro Summer

Fear and Fine Clothing at the Irish Funds Conference

By Tom Adams

On Thursday 23 May 2024, XR Ireland protested at the Irish Funds Industry Association Global Conference. This was a follow up to the protest at the Mansion House two weeks previous, targeting the same group. Today the venue was the gilded Royal Dublin Convention Centre on Ship Street. Alas, we were not able to get close to the Convention Centre because, according to the dozens of Gardai present, the street was closed (at least to non-besuited members of the public) due to some other issue, nothing at all to do with XRI, honest. As it turned out, the Convention Centre’s elusive entrance meant that scores of attendees were left ambling around, confusedly consulting Google Maps, allowing us to engage with them. Or allowing us to try. It was amazing how many denied attending the conference at all, almost as if there was something inherently shameful about being part of an industry with over $1.2 trillion squirreled away in fossil fuels. Of course, the excellent suits and dresses gave them away, as did the oversized watches and handbags (not to mention the chain of jet-black Range Rovers being waved into the underground car park). In the end, we started directing them to the conference, provided they took a leaflet with them.  

The whole thing felt akin to being a waiter at Davos. Hello, sir, can I interest you in a leaflet? Madam, would you please consider divesting from fossil fuels? Could I beseech you to perhaps not be so complicit in the destruction of the natural world? No? Well, do take a vol-au-vent! In terms of the demographics involved, there seemed to be more men than women, and more bald men than the plentifully hirsute. As a rapidly balding middle-aged man, this was heartening, even uplifting, and for a moment I had an urge to follow them down the hill to the Convention Centre and plough my meagre life savings into Vanguard ($267 billion invested in fossil fuels) or BlackRock ($261 billion) or State Street ($133 billion), all Irish Funds Industry Association members. Then I remembered the Climate Emergency and my two-year-old daughter and the tsunami of suffering rushing towards us (and, in so many places around the globe, already making landfall).

A few of the attendees did talk to us. One woman smilingly pointed out that financial services are doing a huge amount for the energy transition. In the abstract, I suppose, she is correct – in 2023, $1.7 trillion was invested in clean energy whereas a ‘mere trillion’ went towards fossil fuel extraction. But this narrative obscures how the nascent renewables industry is being stunted by much more established fossil fuel companies and their nefarious political operatives who sees the energy transition as an existential threat to their hegemony (the only existential threat that they are prepared to recognise). As such, it is not just that every dollar invested in fossil fuels is one that could have gone into clean energy, it is that this dollar will be actively spent on arresting a renewables revolution which requires $4.5 trillion a year by 2030 for us to have any chance – and it is minute, by this stage – of restricting heating to 1.5C globally. And $1 trillion a year is, after all, still a gargantuan amount, particularly given that the IEA affirmed in 2021 that there can be no more oil, gas or coal development if we are to reach Net Zero by 2050. In this context, casting financial services as an altruistic force is, to say the least, problematic.

And then there was the elegantly attired man who informed us that he originally studied as a meteorologist in France. I wondered if he were an outlier in financial services, perhaps even a double agent, a mole! But then he asked if I was aware of the “scientists out there” who had found no conclusive evidence that climate change was occurring due human-made emissions? Ah, no, I said, no, not really. I told him I was aware of the research that found 99.9% of scientists (across 90,000 studies) in agreement that the Climate Emergency was caused by humans. He smiled, undeterred, and told me that these other ‘scientists’ were being denied a platform on mainstream media. I tried to get to the nub of what he believed himself. It’s not about belief, it’s about facts, he said, with a magnificent lack of irony. He then began telling me about the ‘medieval climate optimum’, a denialist trope about how the earth was warm before and Everything Was Fine. I pointed out that scientists had declared 2023 the warmest year in 125,000 years but this did not move him either. Clearly, his alternative scientists said something different, and the net effect was that he could invest in fossil fuels without troubling his conscience. Or perhaps not: you probably hate me! he said, smiling, as he walked away, and there, for a fleeting second, was the guilt, but unconscious still, and projected outward onto us ‘extremists’ with our flags and leaflets and loudspeaker.

On the morning went. Speeches were made. Leaflets distributed. Conversations had. Who knows what the ‘general public’, on their way to work, made of it. Some filmed on their phones, some stopped to ask what it was all about, some had a visceral negative reaction: I’m fine with my pension, thanks very much, one man said, walking by with his buddy. The world has seen much worse! he added. I told him I admired his confidence. Another man, clearly sickened, told us all to go and get jobs. As if attending climate protests was the kind of thing that only the fecklessly unemployed might do. But then there were others who articulated their support, almost with relief; one or two asked how they could join XRI. It goes without saying that there is more work – an immense amount – needed to collapse the gap between those who are actively involved in climate and those who do not yet recognise the extent of the problem, do not yet identify themselves as the kind of people prepared to act.  

Meanwhile, back in the belly of the beast, members of the Irish Funds Industry were highlighting trends and discussing venture capital and doing whatever else investment analysts and asset managers do. It’s all too easy to cast these people as villains, as I have, but we also need them to join us, so this is what I would say: come, everything that you care about is under threat, so place your immense financial power in the service of something bigger than the bottom line. A future worth living in.

Photographs by Thady Trá

Sources

Investing in Climate Chaos - Explore the Data https://investinginclimatechaos.org/data

J.P. Morgan! There are no ‘Women in Tech’ on a dead planet

On the evening of 23rd March, I was among the XRI rebels who disrupted J.P. Morgan Dublin’s “Women in Technology” networking event to draw attention to the harm the company is doing by financing fossil fuel companies. It’s the worst of the big banks dubbed the “dirty dozen” in the 2022 Banking on Climate Chaos report. We also wanted to highlight the irony of their attempt to recruit women in particular, given the outsized harm that climate change does to women around the globe.

We seated ourselves dotted among the audience of about 70 people - a mix of potential recruits and employees. Just a few minutes into the opening remarks of one of four panellists on-stage, our first disrupter in the “audience” stood up declaring “There are no women in tech on a dead planet” and laying out a few of the facts about J.P. Morgan and their funding of climate chaos. She was immediately followed by another disrupter and so on until five of us had spoken  - each beginning with the same slogan and following that with our own variation on the theme. It  culminated with a call to action for those considering working for J.P. Morgan to reconsider and for those working there to demand that their employer divests from all fossil fuels. 

It was only when the fourth and fifth (final) speakers stood up that the organisers seemed to truly get a grip on what was happening before their eyes. One or two of them then went into containment mode - trying to get us to quiet down. Another was overheard calling the guards. When the last of us had stood up and spoken, we made our way with our Extinction Rebellion flags to just in front of the stage, chanting “J.P. Morgan pick a side, divest now, or ecocide”. 

At this point, the organisers called on the “audience” to relocate to a different room and they and the panellists started filing out. A few J.P. Morgan staff stayed behind with us. Staff member Emma Mangan, Head of CIB Merchant & Card European Head of Technology engaged with us. She suggested we fight for change by buying shares in the company and becoming shareholder activists. We responded by asking her to quit J.P. Morgan and put her expertise to good use by helping us fight their continued investment in fossil fuel companies. 

Panellist and Executive Director, Keith Staunton also stayed behind but did not engage, except to deny that he was the Executive Director when asked by one of the activists - after which she pointed out that it stated clearly on the projector slide that he was in fact! We activists exited the room and the building peacefully shortly thereafter. 

We went for drinks afterwards to celebrate the success of our action and to wind down together and share our individual experiences of the evening. One participant shared that some attendees seated in front of her were nervously giggling while the disruption was underway, until one of the disruptors spoke of the “sexual violence” that women suffer as one of the consequences of the displacement of people as climate refugees. Another participant had overheard two of the panellists as they filed out of the event room saying “They’re right, they have a point, we need to talk about this”.

For more background on the action, please see our Press Release and of course, please watch and share our video of this action!

Finally, if you’re reading this and you work in the financial sector, chances are the company you work for does invest in fossil fuels as, sadly, it appears to be the norm rather than the exception. So please do what you can to push them to divest if they haven’t already. Equally, if you know someone who works in the financial sector, please encourage them to do likewise. 

Angela Deegan

A rebel with Extinction Rebellion

Further Resources:

https://www.bankingonclimatechaos.org/

https://divestmentdatabase.org/report-invest-divest-2021/ 

Three of the five XRI disruptors

Stealing the show from JP Morgan to demand they Divest Now from fossil fuels!