A spontaneous organized protest Thursday evening at the headquarter of Dutch bank ING in Amsterdam forced the ING spokesman Arnaud Stuart Cohen to admit the bank is able to exit the North Dakota Pipeline funding contract. On their website and Facebook ING responded few days before after many clients considered to divest to other banks claiming ‘exiting is not possible due to juridical reasons’. The dozens of protestors didn’t accept this claim and forced back demanding clear answers to protect the climate.
British born Georgia Walker organized the protest after a recent visit to the US. When she returned to Amsterdam and found out that two Dutch banks, her bank ING, and ABN AMRO were funding the pipeline: ‘I never organized a protest before, but I felt this was a clear opportunity for action’. She created a Facebook event and got support from NGO’s Fossielvrij NL, Milieudefensie, Greenpeace Netherlands, ordinary citizens and activists from the Dutch Climate Movement.
After protests in London, Amsterdam is the next of many European cities where citizens stand up to defend climate justice and protest against violation of the dignity of human rights for clean water. Why are Europeans angry about a local American conflict?
Egbert Born from Amsterdam Fossielvrij: ‘This is not just an issue of the native Americans. There is very little time left to keep the planet within the 1.5 degree warming limit of the Paris climate agreement. I questioned in the Q&A the claim of ING they could not exit the contract. A professional international bank like ING has lots of lawyers to take care of that. We are part of the American 350.org divestment movement and well informed. I am happy we didn’t let the spokesman get away with that claim and the next step many of the protestors asked is all the banks take their losses and divest from this contract.’
Many Europeans still feel angry towards banks since almost no officials were held responsible personally after the financial crisis of 2008. The austerity measures hit hard on European citizens. But the protestors in Amsterdam also questioned the morality of ING to the spokesman and attacked ING on their reluctance to make a clear statement on the human rights violations at Standing Rock protests. The statement of Arnaud Stuart Cohen raised doubts about the real commitment of ING to do more than obligations by law.
ING committed to a loan of 248 million Euro to the pipeline. They are upholding a next part of that loan until questions upon the violence are answered by legal investigation. Ike Teuling, campaigner for Milieudefensie, the Dutch branch of Friends of the Earth, reminded ING there is no need to wait for official reports to make their own judgement. She is a well-known activist fighting for climate justice. The election of climate change denying Donald Trump as the next president of the United States created deep concern amongst climate networks across Europe.
Like many governmental bodies in the Netherlands, the municipality of Amsterdam has an ongoing contract with ING, by which the city implicitly approves the ING policies. This means money from the citizens of Amsterdam is indirectly funding the North Dakota Pipeline. The local Amsterdam Fossielvrij campaign asks the municipality to review their contract with the ING both on moral and economic grounds, to ultimately divest from fossil fuels.
The next protest at ING Headquarters in Amsterdam is planned on Thursday
December 8th. The group of concerned citizens is committed to keep the pressure up on the Dutch banks to make sure they stop funding these dirty and irresponsible fossil fuel projects. Divestment needs to be done today. Investment in oil is the past, water = life.
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Note for editors, not for publication:
Contact Georgia Walker:
tel. +31 6 148 00 805
Contact Amsterdam FossielVrij:
Egbert Born:
+ 31 6 549 73 723
© Laura Ponchel
Contact Fossielvrij NL:
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