Fracking is dirty and dangerous - and right now, it’s destroying the lives of communities in Vaca Muerta, a region in Patagonia, Argentina.
Big international banks are making huge amounts of money by funding one of the biggest frackers in the region, oil giant YPF. Through billions of dollars in loans and shares, banks like Morgan Stanley and HSBC are profiting as local people in Argentina suffer from cancer, fires, earthquakes, and poisoned water.
And it could get much worse. YPF has huge expansion plans for Vaca Muerta.
But, there's still time to stop YPF's plans: by cutting off the money funding fracking. That’s how we can keep this fossil gas in the ground and protect communities.
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Full Petition Text:
Dear CEO’s of Citi Bank, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, ING, and Morgan Stanley,
It is vital that you withdraw your financial support for fracking in the Vaca Muerta basin, in northern Patagonia, Argentina. Notably from one of the largest operators, YPF [1] as well as other oil and gas companies operating there.
Fracking is devastating. It is banned in many European countries as well as states and municipalities in the U.S. and Latin America.[2] This includes places where your banks are headquartered.
The fracking you are funding is having catastrophic consequences for communities that live in Patagonia.
Families are suffering from chronic health issues like asthma and cancer and living in constant fear of earthquakes. Indigenous Mapuche people are having their ancestral land stolen, invaded and decimated by wells, pipelines, and heavy machinery.[3] Fracking companies are dumping toxic waste close to homes and farmland damaging people’s health and poisoning water supplies. [4]
Extraction in Vaca Muerta could have deadly consequences outside of Argentina too. The latest UN climate report said we cannot build any new oil and gas projects if we hope to keep global heating to 1.5 degrees. The oil and gas locked deep underground there could release 50 billion tons of CO2 into our atmosphere - pushing earth further towards climate breakdown.[5]
In the last year, many of your banks have withdrawn support for Total's destructive East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) - a project that would cause destruction of the environment, human rights abuses and release millions of tonnes of CO2 into our atmosphere. [6] Fracking in Vaca Muerta’s impact is just as destructive.
In withdrawing from EACOP, you chose to be on the right side of history. Please do the same and stop financing YPF and other frackers in Argentina and the devastation they are causing. Instead, we call on you to fund the just transition to clean, safe, renewable energy, which will bring real development to people and communities.
Please stand with the people of Argentina and do right by future generations and withdraw your support for fracking in Vaca Muerta.
Thank you.
References
[1] Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales is a partially state-owned Argentinian energy company, widely known as YPF. It is financed by a number of European and US banks: https://www.banktrack.org/project/vaca_muerta#financiers.
[2]https://www.boell.de/sites/default/files/megaproject.pdf
[3] https://gogel.org/vaca-muerta
[4]https://www.banktrack.org/project/vaca_muerta#impacts
[5] https://opsur.org.ar/2018/02/05/vaca-muerta-megaproject-a-fracking-carbon-bomb-in-patagonia/
[6] https://www.stopeacop.net/our-news/seven-financiers-abandon-totalenergies-eacop-pipeline-in-a-week