Ahead of a major march Sunday in New York City to escalate the fight to end fossil fuels, hundreds of climate activists blocked the entrances to Citibank’s headquarters in Manhattan Thursday as part of a push to end financing for the fossil fuel industry. At least 25 people were arrested, including Alec Connon, co-director of Stop the Money Pipeline. He spoke to Democracy Now! after his release.
ALEC CONNON: Citibank is the world’s second-largest funder of fossil fuels. Since the Paris Agreement was signed seven years ago, which was supposed to be a pivotal turning point in the climate story, Citibank has loaned more than $332 billion to the coal, oil and gas companies that are fueling the climate crisis and fighting climate action at every turn. And we’ve been engaging with Citi for years, talking to their senior leadership and encouraging them to listen to us and to start passing policies to stop financing fossil fuel expansion, but they have not listened. And so, today we descended on their headquarters, and we blocked 12 entrances to their headquarters and prevented many, many hundreds of their workers from being able to enter the building for an hour or two hours.
AMY GOODMAN: Also this week, some 400 scientists endorsed the demands of Sunday’s March to End Fossil Fuels, part of the Global Fight to End Fossil Fuels, which will see actions take place around the world. In an open letter to President Biden, they noted he had vowed to listen to the science in tackling the climate crisis, but, quote, “it’s clear that the crisis is spiraling out of control, and the policies of your administration,” they said, “with regard to fossil fuels fail to align with what the science tells us must happen to avert calamity,” unquote.
For more, we’re joined by one of the signatories to this letter, Rose Abramoff. She’s an Earth scientist who was just arrested for chaining herself to a drill in order to shut down construction of the Mountain Valley Pipeline in West Virginia, which will carry two billion cubic feet of fracked gas across Appalachia. This comes after she was fired in January from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory after urging other scientists to take action on climate change.
— source democracynow.org | Sep 15, 2023