News / Extinction Rebellion
XR Bristol gather outside Barclays Broadmead to protest ‘climate criminals’
XR Bristol gathered outside Barclays in Broadmead on Friday to protest the bank’s investment in fossil fuels.
Protestors held signs saying ‘Barclays use our money to fund climate disaster’ and ‘Barclays are the real climate criminals’.
Posters had also been plastered across the glass with the words ‘Break in case of climate emergency’.
is needed now More than ever
Members of the group reportedly stood outside encouraging customers to switch to alternative banks.
The protest was part of a national day of action by Extinction Rebellion UK to highlight how the bank is “funding fossil fuels” and “profiting from climate chaos”.
The day of action comes as the “Barclays Seven” await sentencing for damage at the bank’s HQ in London in April 2021. The protestors involved could each receive up to 18 months in prison.
According to a report by Reclaim Finance, co-authored by Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, Indigenous Environmental Network, Oil Change International, Reclaim Finance, Sierra Club, and Urgewald, Barclays is the UK’s and Europe’s largest financier of fossil fuels.
Since 2021, when the International Energy Agency concluded there could be no new oil, gas or coal development if the world was to reach net zero by 2050, the company invested over $19 billion in fossil fuels.
Main photo: Mia Vines Booth
Read next:
- Airport flyer bus blockaded by XR youth activists
- Inside a Just Stop Oil meeting in Bristol
- ‘Bristol residents need to do more than put a pink XR sticker on their t-shirt’
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