Dear Mr. Petno,
 
As a JP Morgan Chase Operating Committee member and board member of the Nature Conservancy, you are in a unique position to lead fossil fuel divestment at Chase Bank. As the number one bank of 100 top companies expanding fossil fuels (flying in the face of the urgent need to start a managed decline in their use!), Chase Bank would be making a powerful statement on behalf of our climate by shunning hydrocarbon energy and realigning with the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.  As a commercial banking CEO, you know money makes big things happen, and in the case of the world's largest funder of fossil fuels (Chase Bank), that money makes big emissions happen through tar sands oil projects, Arctic oil and gas, ultra-deep-water oil and gas, and fracked oil and gas. Chase also leads in financing liquefied natural gas, having continued to fund LNG with more than $46 billion since the Paris Agreement.
 
IPCC science is clear that the currently operating coal, oil, and gas reserves alone will push our world beyond the 1.5 °C. tipping point. To initiate new reserves and operations is clearly to value short-term profit over life on earth. As our climate emergency worsens, we can expect:
 
•Sea level rises that destroy coastline infrastructures
•Political unrest and destabilization
•Unimaginable fires, heatwaves, floods, drought and hurricanes
•New and less predictable diseases
•Large scale migration and displacement
•Water wars and terrorism
•Food insecurity and expanded poverty
•Mass extinctions of plants and animals
 
This is not what investors want to hear. The destruction of our ecosystem is anathema to your Nature Conservancy constituents. We all will bear the true cost of fossil fuel investment. The fossil fuel industry’s dirty record as a human rights abuser in many parts of the world will also tarnish your bank. Now is the time to get out of dirty business.
 
What’s the alternative? When Chase changes direction, as it inevitably must, investors will appreciate the buffering from falling coal and gas prices and stranded assets. Chase will limit its culpability as legal cases are brought against those who knowingly ignored emissions warnings. It can fund what we’ll need to survive in the coming decades:
 
•••Large scale renewables such as wind, wave and solar
•••OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion) innovation
•••Smart grid and energy storage
•••Sustainable urban transportation like light rail
•••Water supply and sanitation industries
•••Climate-smart regenerative agriculture
•••Green building investments
•••Private sector management of urban waste, energy, and conservation
 
Mr. Petno, we do not seek green-washing. Going "carbon neutral" in Chase Bank’s internal operations, or pledging money to new renewable infrastructure will be fast offset if the bank remains a massive carbon emissions enabler. We all have a part to play in solving this terrible problem. Chase must stop funding fossil fuels.