National Divestment Day (Postponed)

Westpac: Don’t fund Woodside’s dirty gas

In December 2015, Westpac bank publicly committed to act in support of international goals to limit global warming to less than 2°C. However, since making that declaration, Westpac has:

  •  Sunk $4.7 billion into fossil fuel deals
  • Contributed (April 2016) a massive $90m to a refinancing deal for InterOil to develop one of Asia’s largest untapped gas fields, Elk-Antelope in Papua New Guinea, estimated to release 342 Megatonnes of carbon-dioxide equivalent gases over its lifetime
  • Invested at least $3 billion, since April 2017, into fossil fuels across 38 deals, including projects that massively expand the impacts of the industry 
  • Increased its lending to the fossil fuel sector by 8% from 2017 to 2018
  • Increased its exposure to coal mining by more than 140% between 2017 and 2018 
  • Loaned (February 2018) $52 million to Australian Gas Infrastructure Group to enable the development of a 440 km gas pipeline in the Northern Territory.

Late last year Westpac made a  huge $110 million loan to Woodside. Woodside are trying to build – here in WA – what would be the most polluting project in Australia, the Burrup Hub project, estimated to emit over 6 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases. 

No bank or financial institution should be investing in this project.

Financial institutions should be investing in clean solutions like renewable energy, carbon farming and renewable hydrogen. Instead, many are funding extremely carbon-intensive projects that are huge environmental and stranded-asset risks.

Westpac has a choice: fund our future or continue fuelling dangerous climate change.

That’s why a National Divestment Day was planned at which hundreds of customers would shut their accounts and raise their voices outside Westpac branches across Australia.

Unfortunately, because of COVID-19 (corona virus) National Divestment Day has been postponed. But it has not been cancelled.

Watch for further announcements on our EVENTS page.

 

For additional information about Westpac’s continued investment in fossil fuel projects, see: https://www.marketforces.org.au/analysis-westpacs-new-climate-change-policy/

and: https://www.marketforces.org.au/campaigns/banks-new/westpac/