Target: Georges Elhedery, CEO of HSBC Holdings
Goal: Do not break promise to stop investment in detrimental fossil fuel projects.
Climate-fueled flooding has devastated multiple communities in Uganda. Meanwhile, many community members have been displaced from their homes to make room for a large oil pipeline. Affected individuals are now fighting back against the financier of much of this devastation.
HSBC Holdings is a worldwide banking provider that has funded fossil fuel projects across the planet. The bank responded to criticisms about its global environmental impact by pledging in 2022 to end investments in new oil and gas projects. It also removed an influential executive who had dismissed worries about the climate crisis by stating, “There’s always some nut job telling me about the end of the world.” But recently, the financial organization has gone back on its own pledges by downplaying fossil fuel effects and by making a billion-dollar investment in a new project.
Young climate activists from Uganda and other severely impacted regions recently delivered a letter at a major HSBC summit. The letter called for the company to follow through on its pledge to stop supporting and enabling fossil fuel projects that are killing the planet. Sign the petition below to echo this call to action.
PETITION LETTER:
Dear Mr. Elhedery,
Over 379 million tons: this is the expected carbon footprint of just one of the projects you have funded in Africa. Recently, young people who have weathered the real-world impacts of these investments (including deadly flooding) have asked you to “stand by your commitments to end your support for the fossil fuel industry in line with what the science requires but also put an end to all lending and underwriting for corporations involved in fossil fuel expansion.”
HSBC made a commitment, and now it is going back on its word. If you do not stand by your word, the only investment you will be making is in devastation and in rebuilding what you helped destroy. Honor your pledge, divest yourself from fossil fuels, and make a real investment in the world’s future.
Sincerely,
[Your Name Here]
Photo Credit: Carl Johan
