• Home

Environmentalists to target RBS over investments

LONDON - Part-nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland is to be the target of a mass protest by thousands of environmentalists over its involvement in financing fossil fuel companies, a campaign group said on Thursday.

Camp for Climate Action said it was taking action against RBS because the British government, which owns 84 percent of the bank after a taxpayer-funded bailout at the height of the banking crisis, had failed to do so.

“The government refuses to do anything to prevent RBS from pouring billions of taxpayers’ money into incredibly destructive fossil fuel projects around the world,” said a spokeswoman for the group, which last year set up a protest camp in the middle of a central London street during a G20 summit.

“It’s up to ordinary people to come together again and stop these climate crimes from being committed,” she added.

The group, whose previous targets also include London’s Heathrow Airport, said they had chosen RBS because it was the British bank most heavily involved in financing fossil fuel companies around the world.

The location of the protest camp will be announced in the next month, it added.

RBS is due to hold its Annual General Meeting in Edinburgh on April 28.

• UAE