June 28 – We’re in the streets with gulf south leaders calling for an end to fossil fuel finance. Can you share the news of our action today in New York and make a call to back us up? Some quick links to our social media accounts are below, and you can click here or call 833-971-2490 to connect to the office of Citi CEO Jane Fraser and tell her to stop funding fossil fuels!
June 26 update – More actions! Today we challenged the insurers of the climate crisis with a non-violent direct action, rally, and protest at the offices of Chubb, AIG, and other locations.
June 25 update – Our Gulf South Solidarity Week is off and running! Yesterday, frontline activists from Texas and Louisiana joined the Summer of Heat at the headquarters of some of the planet’s biggest fossil fuel investors: BlackRock, Bank of America, KKR, MUFG and Mizuho. We had pikachus, a dance number in Times Square, and a lot of banners, chants, songs and energy.
We’re targeting the three things new fossil fuel infrastructure needs to get built: Money, permits and insurance. Tomorrow we’re targeting the big insurance companies, and then Thursday a delegation will zip down to DC to attend the FERC meeting and speak out against CP2 – the climate wrecking LNG export terminal. But our biggest action of the week is still on Friday, June 28. We’re meeting at 10am in Zucotti park and marching to the Citibank HQ for the biggest mass action so far of the Summer of Heat.
If you can get to NYC, please RSVP and do so. If you can’t make it to actions this week, you can chip in to support our work, you can sign our petition, and/or you can share the news with your networks online. The post below has more context on why we’re taking action this week.
June 17 post – Last week was the start of the Summer of Heat on Wall Street — a sustained, 12 week campaign targeting the biggest funders and investors in the fossil fuel companies that are causing the climate crisis.
It was … a lot. Blockades, orcas, scientists arrested for reading data into a bullhorn, elders arrested sitting in their rocking chairs and singing. Nearly 150 people were arrested just last week. And we’re just getting started.
Next week, June 23-28, is the Summer of Heat Gulf South Solidarity week. That’s when a bunch of our old (and new) friends from the Gulf South will be in New York to demand accountability from the investors, banks, and insurance companies most responsible for projects in Texas and Louisiana – projects like CP2 and other LNG export terminals that we’ve fought so hard to stop in recent months.
The culmination of the week will be a march and action on Friday, June 28 – Can you join us? If you can get to NYC, please RSVP and do so. If not, make a plan to contact Citi next week and share our demands. You can sign our petition now to get notified of other solidarity actions you can take in the days and weeks ahead.
Our first week of action focussed on civil disobedience actions at Citibank’s global headquarters because they’re the biggest investor in new fossil fuel expansion since the Paris Climate Agreement was signed in 2015. In other words, in a city full of climate criminals, Citi is the biggest investor in, and profiteer off of, the climate crisis.
And we let them know it: On Monday activists blockaded Citi HQ with 150+ people. On Tuesday, a giant pod of people dressed as orcas shut everything down. On Wednesday scientists, including Dr. Sandra Steingraber, brought data, research papers, and a whole lot of righteous fury. On Thursday our old friends from Third Act brought 50+ rocking chairs and 200+ elders to shut down Citibank in a bigger, better version of the action we took for the Spring Spark in Washington DC. And finally on Friday, there was a block party outside the Citi HQ with food, art and a mariachi band — because if we can’t dance we don’t want to be in your revolution!
Actions continue this week led by youth organizers and in solidarity with calls for peace and ceasefire in Israel and Palestine. We’re doing all this now and willing to risk so much because the stakes of the climate crisis are so high, and because it is so clear that all funding and development of new fossil fuel infrastructure must cease immediately. Every month for the last year has set a temperature record. Concentrations of Carbon Dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, are higher than they’ve ever been and rising faster than ever before, according to scientists. And those same scientists and experts are equally clear – things are going to keep getting worse until we end fossil fuels.
As we’ve told you before, fossil fuel projects need three things to get built: Money, Permits, and Insurance. This summer, we’re using civil disobedience to stop the money pipeline, and challenge the global insurance industry in their biggest and most profitable home – New York City. And we know this kind of sustained action can lead to real change, because we’ve seen it before — Occupy Wall Street, shutting down the Trump administration, our recent victory over LNG export permitting — this not to mention the long and storied history of NVDA and civil disobedience here and abroad from the civil rights movement, to Indian independence to the Arab spring and much, much more.
So, don’t delay – make a plan to join us June 28 in Nw York City; Or if that’s not possible sign here to tell these big banks and investors to stop funding fossil fuels. Finally, if you’re able – chip in $1.98 or more to support our summer of heat organizing work. We’re helping with a variety of logistics from pedicabs, to water and ice cream deliveries, and more.
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