This detailed report dives deep into the financing of the fossil fuel industry with the thesis that banks who support companies expanding fossil fuels are driving the climate crisis.
Additional topics covered are banks that are making positive moves, Indigenous resistance, fossil fuel expansion, types of extraction, conclusions, and demands.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This report is incredibly detailed and delivers an abundance of data and information to decipher and analyze.
Graphs, charts, tables, and pictures are included to assist students in understanding the information presented.
Additional Prerequisites
Students should be comfortable with advanced economic data sets, a variety of graphs, and economic vocabulary.
Differentiation
Cross-curricular connections could be made in science classes by using this resource to discuss the different types of fossil fuel extraction or in social studies classes when discussing governmental treaties and resistance.
This resource is dense, so teachers may want to let groups of students work on different sections (either tracking a bank or a type of fossil fuel extraction). Groups could create mini-lessons, presentations, or visuals to teach the class about their findings.
As an extension, students could discuss how the information makes them feel as financial consumers and whether it will impact the financial decisions that they make.
Other related resources include this climate action tracker that shows countries' emission data, this video about tangible steps people can take to help the environment, and this course about climate economics.
Scientist Notes
This resource provides a summary report that highlights how the world's top banks are financing the world's top 20 upstream oil and gas companies. This raises a great concern as these fossil fuel companies continue to expand their operations and scope. For a carbon-free world, this resource is important to guide policymakers to identify and track these banks and polluters to stop climate change. This is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Science and Engineering
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
HS-ESS3-1 Construct an explanation based on evidence for how the availability of natural resources, occurrence of natural hazards, and changes in climate have influenced human activity.
