MUFG: HONOR INDIGENOUS RIGHTS
We are writing to urge MUFG to strengthen its Indigenous Rights Policy and immediately end its relationship with NextDecade's Rio Grande LNG methane export terminal located in Brownsville, Texas.
As MUFG states in its policy, projects that have an impact on Indigenous Peoples Communities are transactions of high caution, MUFG is failing to implement its own environmental and social sustainability policies through its continued financial services to clients engaged in rights violations, and driving climate chaos through its financing of LNG infrastructure.
It is imperative that you listen to Indigenous and impacted communities and immediately stop supporting methane gas expansion in the Rio Grande Valley. By financing the proposed Rio Grande LNG methane export terminal, your company is supporting the continued environmental racism in the Gulf by perpetuating the displacement, pollution, and physical harm of local communities.
MUFG has been a key financier of NextDecade, offering nearly USD $2 billion in support of Rio Grande LNG, a company operating without the consent of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe.
The Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe of Texas, who are the original Indigenous people of the region, have not given their Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) for Rio Grande LNG. The project’s failure to do so is a violation of international frameworks. The Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe have documented the nonconsensual bulldozing of their pristine, ancestral lands and sacred sites for Rio Grande LNG. The proposed site is on the same swath of land as “Garcia Pasture,” a historical sacred site with ancestral burial grounds, artifacts, and villages recognized by the World Monuments Fund and the U.S. National Park Service. The Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe and low-income Latine residents continue to denounce Rio Grande LNG, Texas LNG, and Rio Bravo Pipeline projects as a clear case of environmental racism in the Rio Grande Valley.
If built, the Rio Grande LNG methane export terminal would destroy healthy wetlands, add millions of tons of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere, and violate Indigenous rights, exacerbate environmental racism.These risks have been meticulously laid out in the report Rio Grande Valley: At Risk from Fracked-Gas Export Terminals.
According to Banking on Climate Chaos: Fossil Fuel Finance Report 2024, MUFG is going the wrong direction with financing USD $33 billion of fossil fuels in 2023. USD $8 billion went to liquified methane gas (LNG) expansion projects. There’s nothing natural about methane gas expansion. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere. Methane is not a bridge fuel, but a continuation of fossil fuel expansion.
Methane is highly volatile, and this build-out poses especially dangerous explosion risks. Look no further than the huge explosion at Freeport LNG in June 2022 that resulted in a 450-foot fireball. Rio Grande LNG (and the neighboring planned Texas LNG and Rio Bravo Pipeline) are within approximately six miles of the SpaceX facility, which has had multiple explosions in just the last year and even resulted in the hospitalization of a child. After an explosion in April 2023, SpaceX rocket debris was found on the site of proposed LNG facilities, demonstrating the increased risk from the proximity to the site. Several of the rocket launches have created earthquakes in a region that does not have earthquakes. Elon Musk is requesting a permit to launch the rockets up to 25 times per year, which would only increase the size and scale of the damages. The empirical explosive risk of these facilities is an alarming warning to any sensible, risk-averse insurer.
Despite climate and community impacts and years of community resistance, Rio Grande LNG is set to move forward. As a leading global bank, your company has the power and responsibility to listen to Indigenous and impacted communities and make crucial changes for people and the planet by publicly ruling out methane and Rio Grande LNG immediately.
We urge MUFG to:
- Provide remedy to the destroyed sacred sites
- Strengthen its Indigenous rights policy and corporate due diligence to stop financing clients that are not following FPIC guidance.
- End your relationship with NextDecade and their Rio Grande methane (LNG) export terminal.