(VitalNews.org) – American banks are financing meat, dairy, and feed corporations, going against their own climate commitments.
A report recently looked into funding from over fifty different United States banks directing funds to animal protein and feed companies in the form of loans or shares and bonds.
The lead of the report exposing the banks, Monique Mikhail, said, “Banks have committed to pathways to net zero, but they are ignoring a huge cow-shaped hole in their plans.”
According to the report, these feed and animal protein companies make up more than twenty million tonnes of CO2. The report also said that livestock financing was linked to three major United States banks: CitiGroup, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase.
Mikhail continued, “We weren’t expecting to see the banks sabotaging their own climate commitments to this level.” She also said that eliminating this financing would be one of the most effective climate changes they could make.
All three of the banks agreed to reduce their livestock financing to a net zero within the next few decades. With this, the report does say that the banks may have contributed to more emissions than they think, because animal protein and feed companies typically underreport their emissions.
It’s said that many of these livestock companies don’t report any of their indirect emissions and over fifty percent of the companies don’t report emissions at all.
Some of the banks were financing the highest-emissions-emitting livestock companies which would continue expanding their businesses, posing a threat to the Paris Agreement on global warming.
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