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Fossil fuel divestment campaign grows as protesters target UK banks
With Britain’s big five banks investing £66bn in fossil fuel extraction, campaigners believe pressure is building on banks to sell off toxic assets
At least 1,400 UK customers are set to move their accounts in protest at their banks’ multibillion-pound funding of the fossil fuel industry. The campaign, mirrored by actions in Australia and South Africa, is part of a global day of actionby the fast-growing fossil fuel divestment movement.
The Go Fossil Free campaign has already persuaded 180 institutions, worth $50bn (£33bn) and including local authorities, universities and churches, to sell off their investments in coal, oil and gas. The campaign will stage a series of protests on Saturday, with hundreds other events planned in more than 50 countries.
A spokesman for the Move Your Money campaign, Fionn Travers-Smith, said: “Britain’s biggest banks have been using people’s money to fund fossil fuels and climate change for too long, and the public simply don’t want to support these socially and environmentally catastrophic industries.”
The divestment movement asks investors to commit to selling their investmentsin the biggest 200 fossil fuel companies over five years. A series of analyses have shown that there are already three times more fossil fuels in accessible reserves than can be burned if catastrophic climate change is to be avoided, as world leaders have pledged.
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The Incredible Lies We Are Told About Wall Street
The Incredible Lies We Are Told About Wall Street
Fewer than half of the US population owns a single share of stock and even fewer Americans are in a position to start their own businesses. Nonetheless, at least in rhetoric this nation remains the land of the self-made man — and occasional woman. Many believe they still have the opportunity to be real entrepreneurs — by investing in corporate America through the stock market.
Stock markets provide all our citizens the chance to invest in those companies with promising products and technologies. Companies use capital from the markets and loans from banks to expand plants and innovate. Banks also act as an instrument to screen and evaluate new business opportunities. All of these contentions would hardly survive the usual scrutiny the media give to most economic matters, especially government programs. Why these myths persist is a vital political question.
The stock market today seldom raises capital for real investment. Our economy has become increasingly financialized with speculative activity generating a large share of total profits and also steering — and disrupting — the course of the productive economy.
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Energy companies on the ropes as investors look for deals
Behind the scenes of the oil shock
So far 2015 has not been a banner year for the energy sector. Budgets have been slashed, earnings are down and jobs are being cut.
The mood in Alberta is tense.
Behind the scenes though, it’s a different story. Opportunities are being sensed, calls are being made, flights are being booked to Calgary.
Bruce Edgelow. vice-president of energy with ATB Financial, says his phone has been ringing off the hook with investors both inside and outside Canada looking to take advantage of the current downturn in the oilpatch.
ATB is a provincially-owned financial institution that lends heavily to Alberta businesses, including many in the oil and gas sector.
Edgelow says the calls have been coming from investors that would like to relieve ATB of some of the riskier loans it has made to the oilpatch.
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