“In a very large sense, what your audience sees every day with actions by Bank of America debanking gun clients or Nike pulling a Betsy Ross tribute shoe or Chevron and Exxon, for example, canceling energy projects here in the United States and abroad, a lot of the times you can actually point upstream and see that the largest shareholders of these companies are actually pressuring them to take these actions that are, again, going against the will of not only everyday citizens … but very often the folks who have their hard-earned money … with BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard.” [Emphasis added].
Danhof said the climate change activism of BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard is most hypocritical in the energy sector because for every project abandoned by an American energy company, another foreign-owned company is likely to pick up.“BlackRock is one of the largest investors in a company that is poised to pick up any projects that an American company might abandon and that company just so happens to be PetroChina where BlackRock is the largest outside … one of the largest [investors],” Danhof said.“Part of it is also a sideways attack because there are also a lot of shareholder proposals put forward to financing companies — such as JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, and Bank of America — that are telling them that they must align their financing with the goals of the Paris Climate Accord,” Danhof said.Members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) picket during a strike against Alabama’s Warrior Met Coal at the BlackRock offices in New York on Wednesday, July 28, 2021Members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) picket during a strike against Alabama’s Warrior Met Coal at the BlackRock offices in New York on Wednesday, July 28, 2021Members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) pray during a strike against Alabama’s Warrior Met Coal at the BlackRock offices in New York on Wednesday, July 28, 2021