Well, First Republic Bank finally went down the drain today after circling it for several weeks. I wonder if these kinds of things might have had anything to do with it:

The irony here is that First Republic is going to be acquired by J.P. Morgan. And it was Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan’s CEO, who signaled most directly that the move to force banks to stop financing fossil fuel production was ridiculous (“the road to hell for America”) in this wonderful exchange with Squad Screecher Rashida Tlaib last year (at the 2:50 mark):

More from Barron’s:

Banks Keep Pouring Cash Into Fossil Fuels. U.S. Lenders Lead the Way.

The world’s biggest banks continued to channel billions of dollars into boosting fossil-fuel production capacity in 2022 despite growing calls to scale back lending in response to global warming, finds a new report.

The annual Banking on Climate Chaos report, authored by a group of nonprofits, including Rainforest Action Network, said banks provided $673 billion in finance to the fossil-fuel industry last year. Canadian banks are providing a rising share of the money, though U.S. lenders are still the dominant player.

Gee, it’s almost as though all this ESG investing talk is just virtue-signaling. Time to block a few more highways and throw more tomato soup in museums. That’s sure to change minds.

Chaser, from Politico:

Shareholders at three big banks this week voted down proposals to curb support for fossil fuels, Avery Ellfeldt reports for POLITICO’s E&E News.

None of the eight climate-related resolutions at Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo received a majority vote at annual meetings on Tuesday. Climate campaigners had been optimistic that resolutions asking the banks to phase out support for new fossil fuel production would do better this year because they tailored them to specify that they weren’t asking companies to immediately cut ties with clients.