Today, a coalition of Indigenous, national and international groups join a growing movement placing pressure on financial institutions to drop financially and socially risky projects, delivering a group letter to the 36 banks providing corporate finance to fossil fuel infrastructure giant Enbridge.

Corporations and banks will not move on from the fossil fuel era because of our compelling moral and ecological arguments about why they should. So we are learning to speak their language. Money talks.

It’s been almost six months since Seattle announced a break-up with Wells Fargo over their financing of the Dakota Access Pipeline and other unethical practices. Alameda, Santa Monica, San Francisco, Berkeley, New York City, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles have since followed. But have these cities actually divested?

The City’s banking business is about $125 million, so tiny compared to Seattle and SF, but this shows it can be done without a lot of hoopla, and it doesn’t need to take years to carry out. We are proud that our Council’s vote in February was taken the same week as Seattle took its action to begin the process of divestment.

From May 20th till June 14th, some activists of the Standing Rock’s movement will come to Europe for a solidarity tour called “Stand Up With Standing Rock”.

 If you take a closer look at US Bank’s 2017 Environmental Responsibility Policy, you’ll see they have only committed to cease “project financing.” There’s the rub- despite this new policy, U.S Bank continues to provide hundreds of millions of dollars of corporate financing to pipeline companies for general use, including pipeline construction.

Today, a coalition of grassroots Indigenous groups from across Turtle Island joins the 121 First Nations and Tribes united by the Treaty Alliance Against Tar Sands Expansion, to launch a new, integrated divestment campaign against the banks funding Dakota Access and the four tar sands crude oil pipelines currently proposed out of Canada.