Paris – AGMs of Société Générale and Crédit Agricole shareholders are both held today in Paris. Friends of the Earth France joins them and takes this opportunity to question these banks’ CEOs and shareholders and remind all that the profits of these banks are made at always more expensive human, environmental and climate costs. The NGO demands the end of dodgy investments, particularly in the coal sector, the most climate killer one.

If Crédit Agricole lost 1.5 billion euros in 2011, Société Générale made 2.4 billion of profits. But for Friends of the Earth France, which closely tracks these banks activities, the results are worst by far [1].

Participating in these two AGMs, the NGO joined them with Bob Kincaid, president of the US NGO Coal River Mountain Watch, who demanded explanations to their CEOs for their investments in Mountaintop Removal (MTR), an open-pit mining technique blowing up mountain tops up to 300 meters to reach underneath coal veins. Crédit Agricole and Société Générale own millions of euros of shares in companies deeply involved in MTR like Alpha Natural Resources, Arch Coal or Consol Energy.

For Bob Kincaid : « The Appalachians are under siege. One of the most beautiful mountains chain in the world is daily attacked by more than 3 000 tons of explosives used by the coal industry to blow our mountains, spread poisonous rains on our communities, make sick and kill our friends, our neighbors, our families. With your investments, you participated to the destruction of more than 500 mountains and to the burying of more than 3 200 kilometers of mountain rivers.”

Mountaintop Removal technique has been fought for several years by several NGOs in the US and in the world. The numerous campaign led towards the banking by the BankTrack network (Rainforest Action Network being one of the US members of the BankTrack network), of which Friends of the Earth France is an active member, have led some banks to adopt sectorial policies in this field. For instance, Crédit Suisse excludes from its portfolio all the companies that use MTR. But, to this day, any French banks have made steps in that direction!

It is not the first time that these banks are involved in such dodgy deals. Crédit Agricole and Société Générale are indeed already involved in coal power plants projects Kusile and Medupi in South Africa. This last project will emit 25 million tons of CO2 per year (the equivalent of 5% of all French yearly emissions) and it has been created mostly to answer the industrial sector needs, thus mainly foreign mining companies for exports. Crédit Agricole was also awarded the Pinocchio prize for this project in 2010.

« Even the International Energy Agency recognizes that the situation is critical », explains Ronack Monabay, Friends of the Earth France campaigner. “The IEA has stated that to have a chance to achieving the 2 degrees scenario to fight climate change, it is needed that all energy infrastructures built after 2017 be carbon neutral. It is thus urgent to end investments in coal immediately that is what we ask banks to do”.

Yann Louvel, climate and energy campaign coordinator for the BankTrack network concludes : “While Société Générale boasts itself for “team spirit” and Crédit Agricole claims ”It’s time for green banking”, one can only be struck by the gap between this talk and reality since both of them are in the top 20 climate killer banks in the world [1]. Instead of systematically “greening” their activities, French banks should put in place a moratorium on funding new coal fired power plants, and support instead opportunities in energy efficiency and in the renewables sector”.

[1] For the banks dodgy investments, read the « Bankrolling Climate Change » report which presents the top 20 climate killer banks: BNP Paribas ranks 8th with 10.7 billion euros granted to the coal industry, Crédit Agricole ranks 14th with 5.6 billion euros and Société Générale is 18th with 4.7 billion euros. The complete report is available here ;

http://www.banktrack.org/download/bankrolling_climate_change/climatekill...

—

About Friends of the Earth France

Friends of the Earth campaigns for sustainable and just societies and for the protection of the environment, unites 30 national organisations with thousands of local groups and is part of the world’s largest grassroots environmental network, Friends of the Earth International. Friends of the Earth is a member of Bank Track

About BankTrack

BankTrack is the global network of civil society organisations targeting the operations and investments of large, international operating commercial banks. Our mission is to promote fundamental changes in the way these banks operate so that they act at the service of society, preserve the ecological well-being of the planet and help offer a decent life free of poverty and repression for all people. As a prerequisite for this, banks must operate fully transparent and be accountable for their activities to all their stakeholders and to society at large.

Further information or interviews:
Ronack Monabay, 06 38 89 81 05

FRIENDS OF THE EARTH-
2 B rue Jules Ferry
93100 Montreuil, France
http://www.amisdelaterre.org