Julien Vincent

Julien Vincent led a successful grassroots campaign to defund coal in Australia, a major coal exporter, culminating in commitments from the nation’s four largest banks to end funding for coal projects by 2030. Because of Julien’s activism, Australia’s major insurance companies have also agreed to cease underwriting new coal projects. His organizing has produced a challenging financial landscape for the Australian coal industry, a significant step toward reducing fossil fuels that hasten climate change.

Climate Change Down Under

In Australia, the effects of climate change in recent years have been profound. More frequent and intense weather events—including heat waves, droughts, and wildfires—have wrought havoc on both wilderness and urban areas. In just 2019 and 2020, megafires burned more than 24 million hectares (59 million acres), including a significant portion of Australia’s temperate forests, and killed or displaced more than three billion animals. The fires also released some 800 million tons of carbon dioxide, exceeding average annual emissions for the entire continent.

Meanwhile, the Great Barrier Reef—a 135,000-square-mile ocean expanse with over 450 coral species—is acutely threatened by an increase in ocean temperatures and acidity levels caused by climate change. In 2020, the Reef suffered its most widespread bleaching event yet—stretching 1,400 miles—the third mass bleaching in just five years.

While the causes of climate change are manifold and global, coal is the single largest contributor—and a powerful industry in Australia. The nation is the world’s second biggest exporter of coal by volume and the world’s largest by value. It contains the third largest coal reserves in world, accounting for 29% of total world coal exports. Newcastle, New South Wales, is the world’s largest coal export port.

Traditionally, the Australian coal industry has depended on the country’s four major banks—Commonwealth, Westpac, ANZ, and NAB—as reliable lenders for its operations; these institutions control 80% of Australia’s total lending market.

The industry is enthusiastically supported by the current government. In 2017, then-MP Scott Morrison (later Prime Minister) famously held up a lump of coal in parliament and shouted, “This is coal—don’t be afraid!”

A Problem-solver Finds his Mark

Julien Vincent, 41, is a passionate fighter for the environment in Australia and the wider region. Even as a child, he was fascinated with weather and the natural environment, and went on to study climatology in college. After stints with Oxfam and Greenpeace, in 2013 he founded Market Forces to combat climate change by targeting the financial levers that enable the extraction, refining, and export of coal and other fossil fuels.

Tackling Coal, One Institution at a Time

Through Market Forces (MF), Julien zeroed in on coal as a primary culprit for climate change in Australia. He grew a strategy of rigorous research and analysis combined with direct action and engagement with the financial institutions funding coal. MF’s approach was multi-layered: Julien and his colleagues met with finance executives personally and made plain their requests to defund coal, presenting meticulous data on the risks and costs of coal investment. At the same time, they empowered concerned employees through Facebook and LinkedIn ads; ran full page ads in newspapers and on billboards near financial institutions; and partnered with advocacy groups like 350.org, Greenpeace, and SEED to protest at bank headquarters.

In discussions with executives, Julien combined monetary arguments (coal investments will be stranded assets) with personal appeals (think of the future for your grandkids). When targeting institutions’ coal policies, he built relationships with shareholders, engaging them to end coal investments during annual shareholder meetings.

In 2016, in collaboration with 350.org, Julien and MF organized “divestment days” across Australia during which groups of bank customers visited local branches of pro-coal banks, closed their accounts en masse, cut up bank cards, and posted videos of their actions on social media. The actions became annual events in October in order to keep pressure on banks to divest from coal. Simultaneously, Julien highlighted the hypocrisy of banks’ public statements in support of the Paris Climate Accord even as they continued to invest in coal. Gradually, MF’s campaign grew to include divestment from mortgage lenders, pension funds, and home and car insurance companies that insure and/or invest in coal.

After sustained pressure, targeted protests, and direct engagement with executives, the work began to pay off. In March 2019, QBE Insurance Group announced that it would stop insuring new coal projects and end its exposure to coal by 2030; in July 2019, Suncorp pledged that it will no longer insure new coal projects and will exit any existing projects by 2025. With this commitment, there are now no Australian insurers willing to underwrite new coal projects. In August 2019, Commonwealth Bank committed to end its coal investments by 2030. In May 2020, Westpac made the same commitment, followed by ANZ in October 2020 and NAB in November 2021.

Julien and his colleagues have transformed the landscape of coal investment in Australia—with four major banks and three insurers ending new investment in coal—creating a drought of capital for new projects.

Julien’s combination of rigorous research and public pressure campaigns has targeted the greatest driver of climate change: coal. By cutting off funding for coal from major banks and coverage from insurers, his activism has Australia’s coal industry reeling.

Today, Julien and MF continue their work apace, now targeting major Japanese companies over their ongoing reliance on fossil fuels, much of which are imported from Australia. On this front, Julien is collaborating with Goldman Prize winner Kimiko Hirata (Japan, 2021) and the Kiko Network.