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<p><span lang="EN-GB"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">Dear collective,</span></p>
<p><span lang="EN-GB">i</span><span lang="EN-GB">nexplicably, you
have taken my story about
one of the world’s biggest banks, Standard Chartered, announcing
that it will
not fund any new coal-fired power plant projects. A huge win for
people power
activism.</span>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">My report includes:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span
style="mso-spacerun:yes"></span><i>“NGOs
and community groups from around the world have been
campaigning hard to convince
Standard Chartered to rule out all new coal,” writes one of
them,
Australia-based Market Forces, calling the bank’s
announcement “incredible
news”.</i></span></p>
<i>
</i>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-GB">“Although headquartered
in the UK, Standard
Chartered is … effectively based in Singapore. It is
dominant in Southeast
Asia, where over 100 Gigawatts of new coal power plants are
proposed. Not a
single one of them could be considered compatible with
holding global warming
below 2ºC. </span></i></p>
<i>
</i>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-GB">“People and
organisations from around the
world had called on Standard Chartered to rule out new coal
power plants in
their policy update. Over an intense few months of
campaigning, which involved
tens of thousands of people writing to the bank, messages
came in from almost
every part of the world.</span></i></p>
<i>
</i>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-GB">“Market Forces
coordinated with global NGOs
and groups in Vietnam to publish a full-page ad in the Asian
Financial Times,
insisting the bank's policy update rules out new coal
completely and removes
them from the three Vietnamese power stations they were in
line to finance.</span></i></p>
<i>
</i>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-GB">“It looks like the
wishes of those people,
especially our friends in Vietnam, have been met!</span></i></p>
<i>
</i>
<p class="MsoNormal"><i><span lang="EN-GB">“To illustrate how
significant this is,
since the start of this decade Standard Chartered had funded
over 10,000
Megawatts of new coal power plants. Before its policy
update, the bank was in
line to finance three new coal power plants in Vietnam that
would have added
700 million tonnes of CO2 to the atmosphere each year. This
is a huge change of
direction and one we desperately needed as we fight to
prevent new dirty coal
power being built around the world.”</span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Precisely the kind of
activism for which
the Indymedia movement was started years ago. Activist methods
worth reading about and possibly inspiring others to do
likewise. What is your problem with that?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Or is it a personal
vendetta against me because I dared to criticise your methods
years ago?<br>
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">You seem to have lost your
way….</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Diet</span></p>
</p>
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