Any new fossil fuel infrastructure is incompatible with a safe climate, a fact confirmed by the recent IPCC report but in practice denied by nearly 20 major banks that are financing a methane export boom in the Gulf Coast, Taylor Kate Brown reported today for Floodlight/The Guardian. As many as 12 new liquefied “natural” gas (LNG) terminals are slated for construction in Louisiana and Texas to ship over 200 coal plants’ worth of climate-warming methane globally.
The $124 billion in funding for these projects is coming from 20 major banks, with $22 billion in loans and underwriting coming from four of the six largest US banks: Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America. And while these companies claim these facilities bring good jobs to the Black and low-income communities in which they’re sited and polluting, Texan Roishetta Sibley Ozane sees something different on the ground. “The people in those communities aren’t the ones that are being hired,” she said, calling it a “bad look.” (Floodlight via The Guardian)