REBELS CALL ON ANZ, WESTPAC AND NAB TO DITCH SANTOS
Extinction Rebellion Australia, 27 Aug 2024
Activists unite to raise their voices in a nationwide call on banks to live up to their own climate promises by not lending to Santos.
One of Australia’s largest producers of oil and gas, Santos is pursuing dangerous expansion plans, building two new gas projects, the Barossa project in Tiwi Islands and Narrabri project in New South Wales. Local banks ANZ, Westpac and NAB are among lenders continuing to finance Santos, despite their own claims of supporting the Paris Agreement to pursue net zero emissions by 2050. All three banks are signatories to the United Nations’ Net-Zero Banking Alliance, aligning them with the goals of the 2016 Paris Agreement, yet they have collectively loaned $45.3 billion to the fossil fuel industry over the past eight years. This new joint loan to Santos demonstrates they have no intention of stopping.
In contrast to ANZ, Westpac and NAB, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia has recently announced that it will ‘no longer provide finance to oil and gas producing companies that don’t have a Paris-aligned transition plan’.
On Wednesday 21 August Extinction Rebellion joined in with other activists in a nationwide day of protest led by Market Forces. Staged in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide, activists demanded that Santos abandon their expansion plans and that the banks abide by their public commitments to the Paris Agreement and cease funding expansion of the fossil fuel industry. In Adelaide, a vibrant, noisy march visited the offices of ANZ, Westpac and NAB, finishing up at Santos’ headquarters. The Sydney rally was held at the headquarters of the Westpac bank and in Melbourne, the rally visited NAB and ANZ headquarters.
Extinction Rebellion spokesperson Anna Slynn says:
“With the impacts of the climate crisis being felt across the globe and average temperatures rising, we cannot afford to expand coal, oil or gas production. It beggars belief that three of our major banks are about to lend more money to climate wrecking fossil fuel company Santos.
“We will continue to take a stand against the greed and destruction of the fossil fuel industry and its financial enablers. This loan must be stopped. We call on ANZ, Westpac and NAB customers and shareholders to join us by complaining directly to their bank, switching to another bank, or investing elsewhere.”
More on the Santos campaign can be found on the Market Forces website.
XR Scientist Rebellion spokesperson Janine O’Keefe said “As scientists, we sometimes need to lift our heads out of the detail and look at the macro picture. The Earth is telling us we are in an emergency. The accelerated heating has started and is beginning to take off exponentially. We need to step up.”
“In order to protect all life, we need to listen to nature and read the signs and make use of the best available science. The only way to be honest and impartial is to read and react to the science. Doing nothing and remaining silent is not impartial, it is choosing the path of the liars and deniers.”
“To not act on the science is to be ‘political’, it is to choose the path of the political class with their wealthy climate-denying masters. Any society that is denying science has lost its grip on common sense and is beginning to behave like religions of the dark ages, relying on propaganda, lies and terror. To reduce conflict in society and have any hope of combatting climate and environmental disaster, we need to have science as our common base and scientists in our vanguard.”