Dear Bank CEO, You Are Cordially Invited to Defund This Pipeline

Even by the standards of the chief executive of America’s biggest bank, March 31 looked like it was going to be a very busy day.

Jamie Dimon’s office calendar was chock-full of invitations for that overcast New York Wednesday, with more than 1,000 unsolicited meetings all scheduled to cover the same topic: JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s role in financing an oil pipeline running through Minnesota.

The invites had been rolling in since mid-February, with titles such as “Don’t Fund Climate Disaster” and “Drop Line 3,” a reference to the name of the pipeline being funded in part by ...