Tell Asset Managers to Keep Fossil Fuels in the Ground!

The climate crisis isn’t being financed by a rogue group of unknown actors. It’s being funded in part by some of the largest institutions on Wall Street — asset managers. These institutions are responsible for handling the investments and retirement savings for individual investors, corporate 401(k)s, foundations, public pension funds, and more.  

These asset managers are using our savings to fund fossil fuel expansion. This needs to end. 

Fossil fuel companies sell bonds to raise new funds, which can be used to support general operations or new expansion projects. Fossil fuel expansion, like the Willow Project or the Rio Grande LNG terminal, can’t happen without the help of the money that is raised through the sale of bonds. And bond sales can’t be successful without investors, including the world’s largest asset managers, agreeing to buy them.

Asset managers, like BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street, are some of the biggest buyers of these bonds. They pour billions of dollars into fossil fuel companies every year, helping to finance the buildout of new pipelines, LNG terminals, and fracking sites. As the climate crisis worsens, the need for asset managers to adopt serious climate policies is more important than ever.

The investment decisions of asset managers have huge implications for the world. Just five of the biggest control more than the entire GDP of the US economy; where they choose to invest will help decide whether we transition to a just, low-carbon economy or get locked into a fossil fueled future. In order for fossil fuel expansion to stop, investors must stop buying bonds from companies expanding fossil fuel production and building new fossil fuel infrastructure.

In order to protect their clients’s savings and our (financial) future, they need to stop providing new funding for climate-wrecking fossil fuel expansion projects. Tell asset managers to stop buying fossil fuel bonds! 

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