Banks. Insurance Companies. Asset Managers. Institutional Investors. The financial sector is funding, insuring and investing in the climate crisis, including our public pension funds.The world’s largest banks have pumped $1.9 trillion into fossil fuels since the 2015 Paris Agreement. It’s well beyond time to stop funding the climate crisis. 

Here are ways to take action to stop the money pipeline in Colorado, beginning with personal investments and banking choices, promoting public banks, calling on our state pension fund to divest, and seeking insurance providers who aren’t underwriting and investing in fossil fuel companies.

Here’s how you can take action today: 

1) Choose a socially responsible bank and promote public banking.

• Select a financial institution that is not financing fossil fuel projects and infrastructure – local credit unions are good option.
• Join the newly formed Colorado Public Banking Coalition and sign on in support here. 
• Attend the upcoming Town Hall on Public Banking on Thursday, April 30th!
• Have conversations: Pressure your bank to change & pressure your employer and city to change who they bank with. 
• Who is your credit card with? Move away from Chase, Wells Fargo, etc. and tell them why. 

2) Join Fossil Free PERA (Public Employees Retirement Association) and spread the word. 

• Join Fossil Free PERA and sign the petition calling for divestment here. 

3) Insure Our Future – call on your insurance company to stop investing in and underwriting fossil fuels – and urge your city and county to do the same. 

• Press your city or county to adopt a resolution similar to Boulder County (and Paris, San Francisco). Learn more at https://www.insureourfuture.us/ and download our Insure Our Future Outreach Toolkit here.

4) Check your investments. Invest in a sustainable and equitable clean, renewable energy economy. Move to fossil free portfolios. 

•  Sign the Go Fossil Free Pledge! 
• Find and move to fossil free financial advisers. 
• Call on your employer or fund manager and encourage them to provide fossil free investing alternatives.
• Check on your retirement fund practices & investments; Call on your pension fund to divest; 

Where I have direct control over the individual companies I invest in, I will:

1. Make no new investments in oil, gas, and coal companies, especially the top 200 reserve owners.
2. Sell investments in oil, gas, and coal companies, especially the top 200 reserve owners, within 3-5 years.
3. Invest in a sustainable and equitable new renewable energy economy.
4. Bank with a financial institution that does not invest in fossil fuel companies or infrastructure and will strive to make personal choices in everyday life that reduce dependence on fossil fuels.