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
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)
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.
College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Standards
Dimension 2: Economics
D2.Eco.1.9-12 Analyze how incentives influence choices that may result in policies with a range of costs and benefits for different groups.
D2.Eco.10.9-12 Use current data to explain the influence of changes in spending, production, and the money supply on various economic conditions.
D2.Eco.13.9-12 Explain why advancements in technology and investments in capital goods and human capital increase economic growth and standards of living.
D2.Eco.3.9-12 Analyze the ways in which incentives influence what is produced and distributed in a market system.
D2.Eco.9.9-12 Describe the roles of institutions such as clearly defined property rights and the rule of law in a market economy.
Common Core English Language Arts Standards (CCSS.ELA)
Reading: History/Social Studies (6-12)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.3 Evaluate various explanations for actions or events and determine which explanation best accords with textual evidence, acknowledging where the text leaves matters uncertain.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.5 Analyze in detail how a complex primary source is structured, including how key sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text contribute to the whole.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.11-12.10 By the end of grade 12, read and comprehend history/social studies texts in the grades 11-CCR text complexity band independently and proficiently.
