Conference attendees had to step over bodies of “climate victims” to access the venue
Dublin 8, Dublin Royal Convention Centre, 18th May 2023: From 8:30am to after noon, Extinction Rebellion Ireland (XRI) protestors made things uncomfortable for business-people entering the Irish Funds Annual Global Funds Conference. To enter, attendees had to step over protestors dressed in oil-soaked hazmat suits, past placards reminding them of the critical role that fossil fuel funding has in accelerating climate catastrophes, against a soundtrack of alarm sirens, protest music and impassioned speeches. The speakers listed the worst-offending companies in fossil fuel investment and implored the Irish Funds Industry Association (Irish Funds), for the sake of averting extinction-level climate collapse, to expel these member companies from their organisation.
Tom Spillane, a TU Dublin student of Planning and Environmental Management said, “Irish Funds’ website claims that one of their values is “integrity in everything we do”. What a complete joke. Putting any money into developing new coal, oil or “natural” gas at this stage in the “critical decade” is selling out our future. If they really had any integrity, Irish Funds would shun companies who continue to fund the climate crisis.”
The funds and asset management industry was established in Ireland over 30 years ago. According to Irish Funds, Ireland is the domicile for 5.9% of world-wide investment fund assets, making it the 3rd largest global centre and the 2nd largest in Europe. Their website states “To provide European citizens with better opportunities to create a more secure future and enjoy long-term financial well-being, we must unlock and facilitate the flow of capital to empower businesses throughout Europe”. But their members include nine of the ten top investors in major companies in oil and gas expansion - companies like Exxon, Chevron, Conoco and Glencore. Also among Irish Funds members are four of the banks labelled the “Dirty Dozen” in the 2023 Banking on Climate Chaos report. This label is due to their outsized financing of fossil fuels in the years following the Paris Agreement to limit rising global temperatures. These investment companies and banks include Amundi, BlackRock, BNY Mellon, Invesco, J.P. Morgan, LGIM, State Street, UBS,Vanguard, BNP Paribas, Citi Bank and RBC, most of which have offices in Dublin. XRI says that by allowing these tainted companies to continue as members, Irish Funds is legitimising their cannibalisation of the planet.
J.P. Morgan and Citi have poured $434.1B and $332.9 B respectively into financing fossil fuels between 2016 and 2022. Many Asset Management companies under the Irish Funds umbrella are still investing in the dirtiest of fossil fuels. Invesco, for instance, doesn’t have any policy excluding coal from their investments - either for actively or passively managed funds. BlackRock, with $5,534B in passive “Assets Under Management” has no coal exclusion policy for these assets.
The latest (March 2023) United Nations IPCC report states that “Human-caused climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe” and that “Risks and projected adverse impacts and losses and damages from climate change escalate with every increment of global warming”.
It states that greenhouse gas emissions from existing fossil fuel infrastructure is already more than enough to push the world beyond 1.5°C of global heating compared with pre-industrial times. This means that no more fossil fuel sources can be opened if we’re to avoid a significantly worsening climate crisis. Three billion people live in areas that are “highly vulnerable” to climate breakdown and half of the global population now experiences severe water scarcity for at least part of the year. It warns that in many areas, “we are already reaching the limit to which we can adapt to such severe changes”.
Protestor and hydraulic engineer, Leslie Marce, said “Are Irish Funds living in an alternate universe? We’ve known for over 30 years that we are heading towards climate disaster. In that time, carbon emissions have increased by 60%. Scientists are screaming at us to stop spewing greenhouse gases before we trigger run-away climate change. Companies that invest in fossil fuel expansion are leading us to collective suicide. They must divest and until they do, Irish Funds must exclude them from their Association.”
Today’s XRI protest follows protests demanding divestment from fossil fuels earlier this year at the Dublin offices of BlackRock, J.P. Morgan and Citi bank.
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Resources:
2022 Scorecard on asset managers, fossil fuels and climate change - Reclaim Finance
Banking on Climate Chaos 2023 - Banking on Climate Chaos