BofA: Finance the future instead of destroying it

As Bank Of America prepares for its annual general meeting on April 24, it is important to note that 2023 was the second hottest year ever in Charlotte, and the first year with no snow.

Last year shattered climate change records around the world. Global temperatures reached new highs. Droughts, floods, wildfires, and deadly heat surged. Antarctic ice melted at a breakneck rate, foretelling sea level rise that makes it just a matter of time before huge coastal cities including New York, Tokyo, and Shanghai simply disappear. 

“Record global heat should send shivers down the spines of world leaders,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

But while the world burned, Bank of America backslid on climate. As religious leaders, we want to make it clear that this is dead wrong and must change.

It didn’t need to be this way. Following the adoption of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, all major banks including Bank of America voiced support for the agreement’s outcomes.  At the 2021 UN climate talks in Glasgow, Bank of America and many other financial institutions basked in positive media coverage over their commitments to decarbonize their businesses.

As recently as 2021, Bank of America was a leader among its peers, committing not to finance the construction or expansion of coal mines or coal-fired power plants.

So what happened? It seems that Bank of America has been talking out of both sides of its mouth on the climate issue. Since the beginning of 2016, when the Paris Agreement went into effect, Bank of America has been one of the world’s worst banks for the climate, pouring over $270 billion into the fossil fuel industry. Projects bankrolled by BoA include a rogues’ gallery of climate destroyers. They include the Mountain Valley Pipeline slated to run from West Virginia into North Carolina, with its more than 400 water quality violations.

There are numerous BoA-financed Amazon-based oil drilling projects which destroy the environment while threatening Indigenous rights.

Bank of America is the only major global bank to lend millions for the acquisition of new coal mines by Whitehaven Coal, one of Australia’s dirtiest coal companies. The bank supports the EACOP pipeline project vehemently protested by impacted residents of Tanzania and Uganda because, among other acts of brutality, the pipeline developers have displaced or destroyed thousands of local grave sites and mangled human remains by re-burying adult bodies in children’s coffins.

This cumulative evidence makes it clear that these are not isolated missteps. The revelation, for those with eyes to see, is that the bank repeatedly invests in projects that will guarantee catastrophic climate impacts. This is profoundly misguided, irresponsible and immoral. It stands in direct contradiction to the ethical teachings of every major religion.

Religious leaders and congregations need to recognize that these issues of climate finance are matters of urgent ethical importance. Such work is underway in the United Kingdom, where churches and religious charities are taking a stand against climate-destructive finance and aligning their monetary assets with their moral values. Christian Aid, a large charity, chose recently to close its accounts at Barclays Bank, Europe’s largest fossil fuel financier. In a remarkable display of faith-driven activism, many Christians left high-emitting banks during Lent as a form of penance.

This is an example that faith communities in Charlotte and across the US should consider. We know that this kind of moral leadership can be uncomfortable for some faith communities and difficult for clergy whose congregations may include members of institutions that are funding climate change. But the least our congregations can do is to call loudly for the banks we use to use our money in a manner that protects the climate instead of destroying it. Silence is not an ethical or faithful option. That is why people of faith and spirit in Charlotte will be gathering once again in prayerful protest at Bank of America on April 23 at 10:30 a.m. We invite you to join us.

Regardless of what the government does, if banks do not change their lending practices, the world's climate is cooked. The litany of horrors of a world that surpasses a 2°C temperature rise (we’re currently headed to 3°C+) is exactly that - a litany of horrors that no decent person should accept. Our faiths call on us to respect and protect the poor, the hungry, the vulnerable. Climate change is forcing millions of people into destitution. Things will only get worse without strong, principled financial leadership.

It's past time that financial leaders take measure of the devastation that their current lending is ensuring. Then, they should phase out their finance for fossil fuels and scale up their support for clean energy, at a scale and rate consistent with the goals of the same Paris Agreement they claim to support. Anything less is not enough.

The Rev. Dr. Benjamin Boswell is the Senior Minister of Myers Park Baptist Church.

The Rev. Amy Brooks Paradise is Charlotte Organizer for GreenFaith, an international, multifaith climate justice organization.

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