“If the climate were a bank, it would have been saved” is a climate change slogan that has been printed on many images. U.S. banks were bailed out in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, with the logic that banks were “too big to fail.” The slogan was popularized just before the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference (December 7-18, 2009).
 
“If Climate were a bank, they’d already saved it. - Greenpeace” was posted on Twitter by Johanna Vandemortel on October 2, 2009. “If the #climate were a bank, it would have been saved” was posted on Twitter by Bootsy McCannibal on November 6, 2009. “Friday’s climate protest: ‘If the climate were a bank it would have been saved by now’ Brilliant! #COP15” was posted on Twitter by The Ecologist on November 9, 2009.
 
Venezuela President Hugo Chavez (1954-2013) said at the 15th United Nations Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen on December 16, 2009:
   
“I have been reading some of the slogans painted in the streets… (...) Another notable slogan is, ‘If the climate were a bank, they would have bailed it out already.’”
   
       
Wikipedia: 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference
The 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, commonly known as the Copenhagen Summit, was held at the Bella Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, between 7 and 18 December. The conference included the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 5th Meeting of the Parties (MOP 5) to the Kyoto Protocol. According to the Bali Road Map, a framework for climate change mitigation beyond 2012 was to be agreed there.
 
Twitter
Johanna Vandemortel
@johanna64
If Climate were a bank, they’d already saved it. - Greenpeace
10:25 PM - 2 Oct 2009
     
5 November 2009, Environment News Service (Lincoln City, OR), “African Nations, Activists Disrupt Barcelona Climate Talks,” pg. ?:
BARCELONA, Spain, November 5, 2009 (ENS)—About 70 activists blocked the main entrance to the UN climate change negotiations in Barcelona on Wednesday, demanding steep cuts in the greenhouse gas emissions that are raising the planetary temperature.
 
Calling themselves “The Climate is not for sale,” the demonstrators blocked the doors of the Barcelona Convention Centre Fira Gran Via with their bodies, chanted slogans and waved banners urging developed countries to commit to a legally binding international climate agreement.
(...)
“If the climate were a bank, it would have been saved,” said the group, in a statement released ahead of the protest.
 
Twitter
Bootsy McCannibal
@YellaHausBoots
”“If the #climate were a bank, it would have been saved” http://bit.ly/1lbB5L #cop15 #barcelona
1:16 PM - 6 Nov 2009
   
Twitter
The Ecologist
@the_ecologist
Friday’s climate protest: “If the climate were a bank it would have been saved by now” Brilliant! #COP15
5:07 AM - 9 Nov 2009
 
Google Groups: Private NEMP
Fwd: Corrected: No Logo Turns Ten, A New Movement Brewing
bob
11/24/09
Copenhagen: Seattle Grows Up
By Naomi Klein, The Nation, November 12, 2009
(...)
As one pre-Copenhagen slogan puts it: “If the climate were a bank, it would have been saved”—not abandoned to the brutality of the market.
       
Twitter
Chris D’Iorio
@cediorio
If the climate were a bank, it would have been bailed out. Since that won’t happen, what about paying the climate debt? http://is.gd/54FJw
9:09 AM - 27 Nov 2009
 
Venezuelanalysis.com
Chavez Slams Rich Nations at Copenhagen, Calls for Systemic Change to Save Planet
During his speech to the 15th United Nations Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez slammed the “lack of political will” of the most powerful nations to take serious action to avert climate change, and called for systemic change to save the planet.
Caracas, December 16th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – During his speech to the 15th United Nations Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez slammed the “lack of political will” of the most powerful nations to take serious action to avert climate change, and called for systemic change to save the planet.
(...)
“I have been reading some of the slogans painted in the streets… (...) Another notable slogan is, “If the climate were a bank, they would have bailed it out already,” Chavez said during his speech. “It’s true; the rich governments have saved the capitalist banks,” he said, but they lack “the political will” to make the necessary reductions to greenhouse emissions.
   
Twitter
doreenstabinsky
@doreenstabinsky
Hugo Chavez quotes the message from the streets: if the climate were a bank, we would have already saved it. #cop15 #copenhagen
8:32 AM - 16 Dec 2009
 
Google Books
Title If the Climate Were a Bank, it Would Have Already Been Saved: Latin America Vs Imperialism at the Copenhagen Climate Summit : Speeches and Interviews by Latin American Leaders at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit
Contributor Socialist Alliance (Australia)
Publisher Socialist Alliance, 2010
ISBN 098069471X, 9780980694710
 
The Nation
The People’s Climate March Was Huge, but Will It Change Everything?
Hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets of New York and cities around the world on Sunday, but the fight for climate justice is only beginning.
By Mark Hertsgaard SEPTEMBER 21, 2014
Hundreds of thousands of people filled the streets of New York City on Sunday calling for “climate justice” in the largest mass protest to date against government and corporate inaction to limit the overheating of the planet.
(...)
But for additional flavor of what it was like on the street, here is a baker’s dozen of some of the signs and banners on display:
 
“If the climate were a bank, it would have been saved.”
 
24 February 2019, The Santa Fe New Mexican (Santa Fe, NM), “Teenagers must support - and save - the Earth” by Cyril Christo, pg. B4:
It is time for America’s youth to mobilize for the Earth and speak out. Tens of thousands of teenagers across Europe and Australia have followed the lead of Greta Thunberg (the Joan of Arc for climate awareness), the 16-year-old from Sweden who has told the leaders of the world to wake up and most recently pointed fingers at the inert and passive elite at Davos, Switzerland, that they are the problem and that climate change is here and now and overwhelming the future.
 
Teenagers have skipped school to protest the ineptitude of adults who have been blinded to the scorching of Mother Earth. There is no time left for business as usual. One teacher remarked that these teenagers have indeed listened to their science teachers. One European girl held a placard that “if the climate were a bank it would have been saved.”
 
Twitter
James Osborne
@jabosborne
If the #climate were a bank it would already have been saved #FridaysForFurture #ClimateActionNow #bergamo #italy
6:52 AM - 15 Mar 2019
 
Twitter
Pacte Finance Climat Genève
@PacteCl
“If the climate were a bank we would have saved it by now”
70 000 people mobilised in front of the European Parliament in Brussels
Amongst the demands : a pact that can change everything
The treaty is already drafted and ready to be adopted.
9:16 AM - 21 Mar 2019