VIDEO - Extinction Rebellion vandalism of Barclays branch in 45 seconds: Banking giant touts its eco credentials after co-ordinated actions in Belfast and Scotland

In Belfast city centre, two activists clad in high-vis jackets sprayed red-coloured fluid on the Castle Place branch, put stickers / posters on the glass, then unfurled banners which said “stop funding death” and “this is an intervention”.

Similar acts took place at branches in Glasgow and Aberdeen.

In a Twitter post a fortnight ago, stating its reasons for targeting Barclays, Extinction Rebellion NI (@xr__ni) said that the bank was “the seventh biggest funder of fossil fuels worldwide, and Europe’s biggest”.

It also said Barclays had “given $166.741bn to companies across the fossil fuel cycle from 2016-2021”, and that it had given over $2bn to the top 30 companies with interests in arctic oil and gas.

The group made reference to a report called Banking on Climate Chaos, produced in 2022 as a kind of audit of banks’ fossil fuel investments.

The report bears the logo of a half-dozen organisations, including US environmental outfit the Sierra Club, and concludes the following:

“Fossil fuel financing plateaued last year [2021], amid a lagging recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic – yet at levels still higher than in 2016, the first year after the Paris Agreement was adopted.

"These findings underscore the need for banks to immediately implement policies that end their financing for fossil fuel expansion and begin to zero out their support altogether.”

Police arrived at the Belfast branch after about 20 minutes, and later said that a 33-year-old man and a 30-year-old woman were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and disorderly behaviour.

In response to the co-ordinated acts across the UK, a Barclays spokesperson said: “Barclays was one of the first banks to set an ambition to become net zero by 2050.

“We have set 2030 targets to reduce our financed emissions in four of the highest emitting sectors in our financing portfolio, with additional 2025 targets for the two highest-emitting sectors – energy and power.

“We have also facilitated over £80 billion of green financing since 2018 and we are investing our own capital – £175 million – into sustainability-focussed start-ups.

“While Extinction Rebellion are entitled to their views on these issues, we would ask that in expressing that view they stop short of criminal damage to our facilities which puts people’s safety at risk.”

Extinction Rebellion UK released a statement later in the day saying: “Thousands of you have taken part in over 100 actions all across the UK, from talking to people about switching banks, to superglueing themselves in shop windows, breaking glass, banner dropping, and performing songs.

"So many ways to stop banks funding fossil fuels. Join us today.”

The Royal Society – the world’s oldest scientific academy, dating back to the mid-1600s and which counts Isaac Newton, Ernest Rutherford, and Lord Kelvin as past presidents – currently describes the situation regarding global warming as follows:

"The atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide have increased significantly since the Industrial Revolution began.

"Since preindustrial times, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 has increased by over 40%, methane has increased by more than 150%, and nitrous oxide has increased by roughly 20%.

"More than half of the increase in CO2 has occurred since 1970.

"Increases in all three gases contribute to warming of Earth, with the increase in CO2 playing the largest role.”

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