A new documentary highlights the efforts of the Achuar, Wampís, and Chapra nations from the Peruvian Amazon against state-run oil company Petroperú and its financiers
May 15, 2024 | Mary Mijares | Eye on the Amazon
The 2024 Banking on Climate Chaos (BOCC) report is the most comprehensive analysis of the financial institutions backing the fossil fuel industry and the policies of the world’s 60 largest banks enabling this financing.
Fossil fuel financing has reached nearly $6.9 trillion in the eight years since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, with $705 billion in 2023 alone. Even after clear messages from the International Energy Agency and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that we can’t afford new fossil fuels, banks continue to finance fossil fuel expansion to $347 billion in 2023.
The BOCC report release highlights frontline stories showcasing the disastrous impacts of this fossil fuel financing. As part of these stories, the new documentary called, Oil Debt: Financing Amazon Destruction, highlights the local and international efforts of the Achuar, Wampís, and Chapra nations from the Peruvian Amazon against state-run oil company Petroperú and its financiers. The documentary also highlights the growing alliance between Indigenous peoples and fishing communities, called the MarAmazonía alliance.
From 2017 to 2021, the world’s largest commercial banks from the United States and Europe provided at least around $4.5 billion in financial backing to Petroperú’s Talara Refinery, now among the costliest refineries in South America. This massive oil debt has driven the oil company to great financial hardship and now may set the stage for new oil drilling in the north Peruvian coast and Amazon rainforest, as outlined in Amazon Watch’s 2024 Risk Alert. Block 64, which overlaps with the territories of the three Indigenous nations, is threatened by oil expansion.
As part of efforts to stave off financiers of Petroperú, Amazon Watch accompanied a delegation of three Indigenous leaders from the respective nations to New York and Washington D.C. in April 2024 to meet with banks and discuss the impacts of their financing, and be in solidarity with allies across the Americas targeting banks for its funding of the fossil fuel industry.
The BOCC report reveals that JPMorgan Chase Is the #1 financier of fossil fuel companies in 2023. And so, though the delegation has come to a close, efforts to pressure the biggest enablers of oil, such as JPMorgan Chase, continue, ahead of its Annual General Meeting on May 21.
Please watch the video and share it widely. Join the call to demand an end to the financing of Amazon destruction!
In solidarity with the Indigenous nations and the MarAmazonía Alliance take action to pressure banks responsible for enabling the fossil fuel industry.
