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Dirty money

Nature Climate Change volume 2, pages 72–73 (2012)Cite this article

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For the first time, banks have been ranked by how much they facilitate global warming. Anna Petherick asks how this data should be used.

James Hansen, climatologist and for 30 years the director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, believes that halting emissions from coal would solve four-fifths of the climate crisis. In 2010 he was arrested outside the White House1 as he protested against mountaintop removal mining. He has also written2 to an impressive roster of heads of state, pressing for a moratorium on the construction of new coal-fired power stations. Now Hansen has a fresh list of targets for his anti-coal mission that should keep him busy into his eighth decade: the banks that lend to those who burn and mine the stuff.

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Figure 1: The 20 filthiest financial institutions.

References

  1. James Hansen arrested with 100 others at mountaintop removal mining protest in DC. Huffington Post (27 September 2010); available via http://go.nature.com/G6d3FX.

  2. Hansen, J. Coal-fired power stations are death factories. Close them. The Guardian (15 February 2009); available via http://go.nature.com/dkf3Ik.

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  3. Schücking, H. et al. Bankrolling Climate Change. A Look into the Portfolios of the World's Largest Banks (urgewald, GroundWork, Earthlife Africa Johannesburg and BankTrack, 2011); available via http://go.nature.com/wPQVqZ.

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  4. Tett, G. Fool's Gold. How Unrestrained Greed Corrupted a Dream, Shattered Global Markets and Unleashed a Catastrophe (Abacus, 2009).

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  1. Anna Petherick is a freelance journalist based in Devon, UK,

    Anna Petherick

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  1. Anna Petherick
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Correspondence to Anna Petherick.

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Petherick, A. Dirty money. Nature Clim Change 2, 72–73 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1381

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