MEDIA ADVISORY
Rainforest Action Network, Appalachians Confront Citi Over Coal Financing at Annual Shareholder Meeting
Groups to support landmark climate change resolution
WHEN: Tuesday April 22nd, 2008 at 9:45am WHERE: The Hilton on 1335 Ave of the Americas.
WHAT: Activists with Rainforest Action Network (RAN) will be joined by Appalachian residents at Citi’s Annual General Shareholder Meeting on April 22nd to protest the bank’s role as a leading financier of the coal industry, and to support a landmark shareholder resolution on climate change. In front of the shareholder meeting there will be a large vigil to call attention to the massive climate and community destruction caused by the bank’s investment in mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining.
VISUALS: Approximately 40 people dressed all in black with large cloth smokestacks as well as a gallery of vivid mountain top removal photos. Signs saying: “stop funding coal from the cradle to the grave,” and “Coal is Over. Fund the Future!”
WHY: The resolution—to be offered by Boston Common Asset Management, Catholic Healthcare West and Pleroma Inc.—requests that Citi cease all financial support for mountaintop removal (MTR) coal mining and the construction of new coal-fired power plants. This marks the first time a shareholder resolution addressing the climate change implications of a banks external financing will come to a vote.
Coal-fired power plants are responsible for nearly a third of the nation’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. In 2006, the combined CO2 emissions of Citi’s power company clients totaled an estimated 1,577 million, which constituted 25 percent of the nation’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Citi has financial relationships with each of the top five producers of MTR coal. The EPA estimates that more than a million acres across Appalachia have already been lost to MTR, and that if the practice continues unabated, an additional 1.4 million acres of forest will be lost by the end of the decade. Mountaintop removal flattens mountain ranges and transforms healthy mountain woodlands into toxic sludge and rubble that has clogged more than 700 miles of rivers and streams. The large-scale destruction forces animal species from their habitat and uproots Appalachian communities.
For more information, visit www.dirtymoney.org.
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Rainforest Action Network runs hard-hitting campaigns to break America’s oil addiction, reduce our reliance on coal, protect endangered forests and Indigenous rights, and stop destructive investments around the world through education, grassroots organizing, and non-violent direct action.