Public pressure on banks funding the Dakota Access Pipeline appears to be paying off.
Norway’s largest bank, one of 38 financial institutions providing loans for the project, announced it is conducting its own objective investigation into the treatment of the Standing Rock Sioux and whether their rights are being violated, according to an article in Yes! magazine.
DNB has loaned the $3.7 billion project $120 million, and is providing an additional $460 million line of credit, according to the article. It continued:
The statement from DNB, released Nov. 6, said: “DNB is concerned about how the situation surrounding the oil pipeline in North Dakota has developed. The bank will therefore use its position as lender to the project to encourage a more constructive process to find solutions.”
“We expect the companies and the responsible authorities to take a serious view of the situation,” it said.
A previous article in Yes! Magazine headlined: “A Strategy to Stop the Funding Behind the Dakota Access Pipeline” suggests nonviolent civil disobedience to highlight the disconnect between these banks public stance on green energy and their financial backing of the pipeline.
The article lists all 38 financial institutions backing the project. They include Wells Fargo, US Bank, Citibank, Bank of America, UBS, and Morgan Stanley. According to the article:
Many of these banks may be vulnerable to pressure. For one thing, they’re eager to appear green: Bank of America, for instance, recently announced plans to make all its bank branches “carbon-neutral” by 2020. Which is nice — solar panels on the roof of the drive-thru tellers are better than no solar panels. But as [Rainforest Action Network’s Amanda] Starbuck said, it’s basically meaningless stacked up against Bank of America’s lending portfolio, chock full of loans to develop “extreme fossil fuels, which are simply incompatible with a climate-stable world.”
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[…] Following the rally, approximately 50 people splintered off and marched to Wells Fargo Place. It was an effort to draw attention to the fact that Wells Fargo is one of the 38 financial institutions providing credit to the pipeline company, Energy Transfer Partners. This is part of an effort to embarrass these banks into pulling their funding. This tactic has had some recent success. (We recently wrote that DNB, the largest bank in Norway and a pipeline financer, is now doing its own investigation into the project. More here.) […]
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[…] Nov. 12, we shared a story on pressure being placed on financial institutions to pull their support of DAPL. GreeenPeace is […]
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[…] This was part of a National Day of Action trying to pressure the dozens of financial institutions funding DAPL to divest. Most of the other actions were educational, with people standing outside of banks talking to customers about the issue. (Public pressure has had some success, with DNB, the largest bank in Norway, pulling its investment.) […]
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