As Devilstower says: "After all the bad news I've brought you on mountaintop removal, it's wonderful to see some success."
Yesterday, Bank of America, a lead financier of coal, announced that it will be phasing out financing for companies that practice mountaintop removal coal mining, a highly destructive and controversial method of coal extraction. Bank of America’s decision is a giant leap forward in the fight against mountaintop removal, which has devastated Appalachian communities and the mountains and streams they depend on.
The decision is also a testament to the hard work of Appalachian communities and anti-coal activists across the country, whose collective pressure left Bank of America with little choice but to abandon its support for this barbaric form of resource extraction.
There is a powerful coal movement in this country, and we are winning!
As the new policy states: "Bank of America is particularly concerned about surface mining conducted through mountain top removal in locations such as central Appalachia. We therefore will phase out financing of companies whose predominant method of
At Rainforest Action Network we have been pressuring Bank of America since October 2007 to cease financing of mountaintop removal mining and coal-fired power plants. I see this as a critical step in the right direction and a challenge to Citi, JP Morgan Chase and other banks to similarly take responsibility for the social and environmental impacts of their financing.
In the coming weeks, it will be crucial that Bank of America put its money where their mouth is. The devil is, of course, in the details with this policy, and Bank of America needs to issue a timeline for the phasing out of its financing with further explanation of what will and will not continue to be financed.
On a larger scale, banks hold the purse strings for the coal industry and have tremendous influence in determining whether we continue to allow these companies to destroy our climate and our communities, or whether we start to fund the future with a green new deal that revolutionizes our energy economy. This is a small taste of the role responsible banks could play in mitigating the climate crisis.