File this under “cruel irony.” American Banker carried a story about the only bank in the northernmost town in the U.S., Utqiagvik, Alaska. What’s the cruel irony? That bank, just one block from the Arctic Ocean, is Wells Fargo.

Wells Fargo is one of the “filthy four” American banks, joining JPMorgan Chase, Citi and Bank of America at the top of a list of 60 banks that have, since 2016, just after the signing of the Paris Agreement, financed new fossil fuel production to the tune of $4.6 trillion. The filthy four alone account for more than a quarter of that amount.

So, Alaska, which is heating faster than many areas of the Earth, is “serviced” in this northern outpost by one of the biggest culprits dedicated to ensuring more climate chaos, Arctic ice melt, permafrost thaw and Indigenous peoples’ ways of life upended.

Another irony is that most of the customers of that Wells Fargo branch reportedly like the bank personnel and value the financial services they receive. That’s probably the case here in Maine for customers of “our” two of the filthy four, JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America. Could Portland be our Utqiagvik? The Gulf of Maine is not the Arctic Ocean, but the climate chaos financed by the filthy four is felt here, too.

It’s time for us to “brake the banks,” to stop their financing of fossil fuels.

David Boyer
Belfast

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