6th July 2022: Doctors disrupt the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge

Posted by: HealthXR - Posted on:

On the evening of July 6th 2022, five members of Doctors for Extinction Rebellion got access to the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge, a private 5.6 kilometre run normally reserved for banks and corporations. They began the race in normal T-shirts, but removed them halfway to reveal bright yellow vests saying ‘JP Morgan Commit Climate Neglect’. Two doctors then erected a large banner which had been hidden on their persons, which also said ‘JP Morgan Commit Climate Neglect’, and proceeded to run the race with it.

Five health professionals disrupted the UK JP Morgan Corporate Challenge, wearing bright yellow vests and holding a large banner, all saying  ‘JP Morgan Commit Climate Neglect’.


One protestor, Craig Boggon, is a paediatric critical care practitioner and former Great Britain triathlete, and said ‘I spend my days looking after children in intensive care units. Once they leave the unit, I want them to grow up in a safe and stable world, but JP Morgan’s persistent investment in deadly new fossil fuel projects is a significant threat to that.’ Dr Katie Percival, who held the banner, said “We are here to tell JP Morgan that their actions are no longer acceptable. Their continued financing of new fossil fuel projects is pushing the world over 1.5 C of warming, which over 200 health journals have written would risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse”[1]

The beneficiary of the JP Morgan Corporate Challenge this year is the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children[2], yet JP Morgan are the world’s biggest investors in new fossil fuel projects, causing vastly more harm to children than any good their donation might achieve. Save the Children, in their 2021 report entitled ‘Born into the climate crisis’, said “Without urgent action – to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, end the production, use and subsidy of fossil fuels […] entire generations of children, present and future, are at risk of being left behind as their planet is reshaped by climate change”[3] A UNICEF report in the same year called ‘The climate crisis is a child rights crisis’ estimated that half the world’s children live in countries that are at ‘extremely high risk’. [4]

This was the latest in a series of protests Doctors for Extinction Rebellion have taken against JP Morgan. In September 2021, sixty health professionals protested at their Canary Wharf Headquarters, which resulted in two being arrested for spraying ‘CODE RED’ onto the JP Morgan-branded planters outside. They were found not guilty by a Magistrate in June of this year, as prosecution would have interfered disproportionately with their Freedom of Expression rights.

Many other have targeted JP Morgan and their retail banking arm Chase, including NASA scientist Peter Kalmus, who chained himself to an entrance of their Los Angeles headquarters earlier this year. He said ‘Chase are profiting from the destruction of your future and the entire Earth and it HAS TO STOP NOW’[5]

Dr Christianne Guillotte was outside the event handing out leaflets as runners left. She said “Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan Chase CEO, is on record saying climate change one of the “critical issues of our time”. Yet his bank is failing miserably to do its part to prevent it, and in doing so, stealing a safe future from our kids”

References

  1. “Climate crisis: Over 200 health journals urge world leaders to tackle “catastrophic harm” , BMJ 2021;374:n2177
  2. NSPCC are the beneficiaries of the London JPM Corporate Challenege 2022 (Link)
  3. Born into the Climate Crisis Save the Children 2021
  4. The Climate Crisis is a Child Rights Crisis UNICEF 2021
  5. Quote from NASA scientist Peter Kalmus from this Tweet April 2022

Notes to editors

  1. The JP Morgan Corporate Challenge usually attracts close to 30,000 attendees (Link)
  2. JP Morgan Chase joined the ‘Net Zero Banking Alliance’ in October 2021. (Link)
  3. In signing, they committed to reducing their emissions and those of their clients to Net Zero by 2050, consistent with a maximum temperature rise of 1.5°C (Link). 
  4. However, the IPCC have stated “Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, limiting global warming to 1.5°C is beyond reach.”(Link). 
  5. JPMC have actually increased their fossil fuel funding in 2021 by $10 billion/year, and remain the biggest financier of fossil fuels in the world.(Link )

Previous protests at JPMC by Doctors for XR

City AM: Doctors for XR forcibly removed from JP Morgan building. September 3rd 2021

Reuters: Doctors stage climate change protest outside JP Morgan. November 5th 2021

Letter from Doctors for XR to JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon September 2021: 

Protests at JPMC by other groups

Business Insider: NASA scientist arrested after chaining himself to Chase Bank as part of global climate protests.