Stand.earth Research Group Named Finalist for 2023 Keeling Curve Prize

Stand.earth Research Group has been named a finalist for the Global Warming Mitigation Project’s 2023 Keeling Curve Prize in acknowledgment of its research driving the Stand.earth campaign to halt expansion of oil and gas drilling by advocating for the adoption of Amazon Exclusion Policies by major global banks.

Stand.earth Research Group is one of 20 climate solutions projects selected from nearly 300 applications through a rigorous screening process conducted by a team of climate experts. Ten of the finalists will ultimately go on to win the prize of $50,000 each.

The Keeling Curve Prize recognizes projects and programs from around the globe spanning five categories that are effectively reducing, removing, or replacing greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere. The prize is awarded by the Global Warming Mitigation Project, a nonprofit that activates and accelerates climate solutions projects and programs around the world that mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.

Stand.earth Research Group is one of four finalists in the finance category in recognition of its leadership and innovation in financial, policy, and supply chain research in the Amazon. These efforts are part of Stand’s Amazon campaign’s broader goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by keeping Amazon oil and gas from being burned, and to maintain unroaded, intact rainforest landscapes that act as carbon sinks.

The Amazon Banks Database and Mapping Project is a project of Stand.earth, in partnership with Amazon Watch (database) and Earth InSight (mapping), and in support of Indigenous organizations including COICA, the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin, and CONFENIAE, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon. These collaborative efforts are designed to build the financial conditions to empower the Amazonia for Life movement, which aims to avert the tipping point by protecting 80% of the Amazonia by 2025.

“We ask banks to stop financing the oil and gas industry, leading to curtailment of credit that slows oil and gas expansion and supports Indigenous leaders to seek policy changes like the recent moratorium on oil expansion in the Ecuadorian Amazon,” said Angeline Robertson, senior researcher with Stand.earth Research Group. “Already the work has resulted in four banks committing to end oil and gas trade financing, a flow of credit worth over $7 billion USD since 2009, and we have seen banks such as BNP Paribas take on the ambition of applying their commitments across the Amazon Biome.”

On the success of this effort, Stand began work in 2022 on the Amazon Banks Database and Banks Exposure Map, which will identify all banks involved in oil and gas activities in the Amazonian regions of Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia, as the key countries exporting oil and gas from the Amazon. These resources will become publicly available on the Exit Amazon Oil and Gas website later this year, and are intended to help secure commitments from a critical mass of banks to discontinue funding for Amazon oil and gas.

This research is an effort at reducing carbon emissions by making oil and gas activities harder to finance. By restricting credit, the cost of borrowing goes up, and oil and gas companies have to contend with higher costs for their drilling campaigns and infrastructure plans, leaving oil in the ground and more rainforest intact, and buying more time for a just transition.

“Indigenous peoples of the Amazon have fought against the oil and gas industry for decades, protesting the violation of their rights, pollution and disease in their communities, the threat to their food security and water quality, and because the roads built by the oil sector cause deforestation and loss of biodiversity,” Robertson said. “This project responds to the request of indigenous leaders to innovate mechanisms of influence that allow adequate accountability on the part of industry, governments and financial institutions that invest in the destruction of the Amazon.”

Stand.earth Research Group is the research arm of international environmental advocacy organization Stand.earth. It supports the global environmental community with cutting-edge investigative research to trace the sources of raw materials and energy used to drive the world economy.

Media contact:

Cari Barcas, Communications Director, cari.barcas@stand.earth