UPDATE: It's time for Standard Chartered to come clean on the Reef

Posted by Danielle Boobyer — 18 June 2015 at 2:12pm - Comments
Standard Chartered logo with drowning clownfish. Background shows reef
by-nc. Credit: Emily Buchanan

Just a few weeks ago we started this campaign by asking a very simple question: is Standard Chartered helping to find money for one of the planet’s most destructive fossil fuel projects that threatens the Great Barrier Reef? We asked this question in front of Standard Chartered’s shareholders at their AGM in London. 

And the answer we got wasn’t as bad as we expected. Or so we thought. Standard Chartered’s chairman said to us that they would “go no further” until the bank was “fully satisfied with all of the environmental aspects of this project”. That sounded like a promising first step.

However, we knew from the beginning that Standard Chartered needed to do more. If we want to stop the construction of the mega-mine at Carmichael, we need the bank not just to “go no further” but to walk away completely from the project. Only that would send a strong enough message to all other banks that this project is as toxic for their reputation and balance sheet as it is for the climate and the Great Barrier Reef.

Putting on the pressure

So we got to work. Together with our colleagues in Asia we paid the bank a visit at their headquarters in Hong Kong, brought the campaign directly to Standard Chartered’s branches and recently re-branded over 100 of their ATMs in 5 different cities all over Taiwan to tell Standard Chartered’s customers how the bank is helping to destroy the Great Barrier Reef. And here in the UK, over 50,000 of us took action and told Standard Chartered loud and clear that they should choose coral, not coal. 

Before we started our campaign Standard Chartered wouldn’t even admit that they were helping to build this monster coal mine. But they have still not come clean about what exactly it is they are doing. While we knew that they were advising the company that wants to build the mine, that same company has also said in court that Standard Chartered already gave them US$680m for the project. So when we met and sat down with the bank, we asked them what that was about. They wouldn’t tell us. 

Time for answers

Since then, others - including the Wangan & Jagalingou, an indigenous group on whose land the mine would be built - have asked the same question. But to now avail. The bank continues to fail to explain what happened to those USD680m. I don’t know about your bank, but if I ask my bank to lend me even a few hundred pounds, they will want to know exactly what I plan to do with that money. But when the mining company asked for USD680m, it seems like nobody asked any questions about where it would end up.

It’s time for Standard Chartered to come clean about the full extent of its involvement with this destructive project. And end it! Leading scientists who have studied the Great Barrier Reef for years tell us we can have coral or coal, but we can’t have both (some of them even wrote a letter to Standard Chartered asking them to get out of the project). Thousands of us have called on the bank to do the right thing (and it’s not just us, we’re working with our friends at 350.org and SumOfUs to make our voices heard).

Our movement is getting stronger every day. Make sure to add your voice and tell Standard Chartered’s new CEO that you won’t stand by while his bank helps destroy one of the greatest natural wonders of this world.

Sign the petition and tell Standard Chartered to back coral, not coal.

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