The right answers are leaf nodes—-either voters or consumers. If consumers act, intermediary institutions like banks will naturally follow. Ditto if the laws change.
Why can't they go to a different bank if they feel so strongly about it?
Pesticides are a necessary chemical to industrial food production. Consumers can opt to prevent that from being used/manufactured by buying organic[1]. Organic goods are widely available in US supermarkets. The fact that organics haven't outpaced conventional foods tells you all you need to know about consumer preferences.
>Can poorer car buyers opt for any thing cheaper than the currently available options? Or rather, because there are no options available for them, should they simply not use cars instead of using the polluting gasoline cars?
So according to you, poor car buyers are forced to choose between a gas guzzler or no car at all, because the fuel efficient cars are too expensive. Clearly the right thing to do is... stop gas guzzlers from manufactured in the first place so they're forced to not have a car?
[1] organic allows certain kinds of "natural" pesticides, which might or might not be worse than their banned counterparts, but this is another can of worms
Or tax gas guzzlers more? Provide tax incentives for fuel-efficient and electric cars? Both?
Agreed. And what banks do has (or should have) little bearing on that.
> This does nothing to help the poor but environmentally conscious person.
That's debatable.* But in any case, banks aren't charities. Modern capitalism holds that they have no obligation to anyone except their shareholders.
*For actually "poor" people, car ownership is a burden. They have to pay high interest rates and tie up a significant portion of their capital just to get around. Whereas most developed countries (and even a great many developing countries) have efficient public transportation, which doesn't have these downsides for poor people. Also the poor have more to lose from climate change, so arguably these banks are serving them better in the long-term by divesting from carbon.
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For the other part I agree companies aren’t charities. My entire point here is that people should quit trying to pressure them into acting like charities. Let companies make money, that’s what they are good at. If you want to eliminate ICE engines pass a law.
You keep saying "pressure" as if it's a magic word. How can you pressure a business to do something against what it believes to be its own (or its shareholders') interest? All kinds of people lobby companies and government to do literally everything under the sun. Companies don't listen to all of them. They only listen to the ones they think are good for them. And if they choose wrong, the market will punish them. Right?
On a separate note "companies shouldn't be woke" people also tend to be among the most ardent worshippers of the free market. Somehow their faith is shaken when companies do something they personally disagree with - then they fall back to "they're just giving in to activist pressure". I'm not saying you're like that. Just pointing out the irony.
Re: more expensive cars hurting the poor in North America, I'm honestly skeptical. If anything more expensive cars will be a forcing function towards developing more affordable housing close to work and better public transportation systems. Kind of an inverse Jevon's paradox. This will save the poor money in the long term.