With Britain’s big five banks investing £66bn in fossil fuel extraction, campaigners believe pressure is building on banks to sell off toxic assets
At least 1,400 UK customers are set to move their accounts in protest at their banks’ multibillion-pound funding of the fossil fuel industry. The campaign, mirrored by actions in Australia and South Africa, is part of a global day of actionby the fast-growing fossil fuel divestment movement.
The Go Fossil Free campaign has already persuaded 180 institutions, worth $50bn (£33bn) and including local authorities, universities and churches, to sell off their investments in coal, oil and gas. The campaign will stage a series of protests on Saturday, with hundreds other events planned in more than 50 countries.
A spokesman for the Move Your Money campaign, Fionn Travers-Smith, said: “Britain’s biggest banks have been using people’s money to fund fossil fuels and climate change for too long, and the public simply don’t want to support these socially and environmentally catastrophic industries.”
The divestment movement asks investors to commit to selling their investmentsin the biggest 200 fossil fuel companies over five years. A series of analyses have shown that there are already three times more fossil fuels in accessible reserves than can be burned if catastrophic climate change is to be avoided, as world leaders have pledged.
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