CURRENT INITIATIVES
JP Morgan Chase: Divest from Funding Fossil Fuel Expansion for a #Fossil Free Future
In early 2021, Houston Youth Climate Strike joined the Youth Climate Finance Alliance, a nationwide coalition of organizations demanding that megabanks divest from funding fossil fuel expansion. As the world’s number one fossil fuel funder, JP Morgan Chase is our biggest target. In April we launched a campaign to write letters to Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, and worked to educate our community on Chase’s dirty investments and greenwashing attempts.
You can read our letter to Jamie Dimon here, and learn more about Chase’s fossil fuel funding here.
On October 29th, 2021, Houston Youth Climate Strike joined forces with other organizations around the country for Fossil Free Future: a historic day of action dedicated to demanding that megabanks and other major financial institutions divest from fossil fuels and stop greenwashing their climate commitments. Our generation, Gen Z, knows the price of climate disasters better than anyone. Before we learned about money, we watched droughts carve cracks into our gardens. Before we knew of banks, we waded through the knee-deep floodwaters that rushed into our homes. Now, as we turn old enough to manage our own finances, we know why. Here in Houston, on the frontlines of the climate crisis, we are experiencing the direct impacts of JP Morgan Chase’s dirty money and we refuse to stand for it.
In Houston, organizers and young people took to the streets to make our demands heard. After a rally at Tranquility Park, we marched to Chase Bank in Downtown Houston to demonstrate in front of the building.
Over the next few months we will continue to apply pressure to Chase until they agree to our demands.
Houston Climate Action Plan Youth Engagement Working Group
On April 22, 2020, the City of Houston launched its Climate Action Plan (HCAP). The City announced that implementation would begin through working groups focused on the four different sections of the plan: Energy Transition, Materials Management, Building Optimization, and Transportation. However, there wasn’t a formal way for young people to get involved. Houston Youth Climate Strike partnered with several other climate organizations in Houston to work with the City to create a Youth Engagement Working Group— a group by and for youth, dedicated to educating the community about HCAP and empowering young people to lead sustainability projects in their own communities. Throughout the fall and spring of 2020, HYCS worked with the City of Houston’s Office of Sustainability to design and recruit for the working group, and the group officially launched in April of 2021.
Now, HYCS members continue to lead the Youth Working Group and work with the Office of Resilience and Sustainability to coordinate on meeting HCAP goals. Current working group projects involve creating presentation materials for school clubs and teachers, and working to get HISD to transition its school bus fleet to zero emission.
SAVE OUR PLANET