Clean the banks

Guest post by Liam Barrington-Bush, tar sands-free campaign manager, People & Planet

I’m still catching my breath, nearly a week after an EU vote on reducing transport fuel emissions!  Seeing that sentence in writing, I realise it might not sound quite as exciting to those who weren’t active in the campaign that surrounded it. So let me take a step back for a moment and explain... 

What the Fuel Quality Directive is all about

Since 2008, the EU has been debating a ‘Fuel Quality Directive’ (FQD) – a set of measures that would aim to reduce the continent’s transport-related emissions 6% by 2020.

Excited yet?

The proposal included labelling tar sands oil – the dirtiest transport fuel in commercial production and 23% worse for the world than most conventional crudes.

Big Oil gets in the way of democracy...

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the oil companies making a killing in the Northern Alberta oil fields where tar sands were first found (though they are now being explored in Madagascar, Venezuela and elsewhere), decided, along with the Canadian Government, that...

This Monday WDM campaigners came to the office with big smiles on their faces. Over the weekend, we’d heard that French Oil giant Total, subject to one of our latest online actions, had apparently cancelled its plans to mine tar sands in Madagascar.

High fives all around. Or?

As the story only seemed to have appeared on a mining industry website, we decided we needed to do some proper digging around. The first thing we did was get in touch with one of our allies in Madagascar. It can be just as hard for campaigners in Madagascar to get information as it is for us here, but their understanding is that Total isn’t going to pull out completely, but instead will extend its license to explore rather than moving on to full scale exploitation. 

This was also confirmed by Total’s business partner, ‘Madagascar Oil’ (based in Houston, not Madagascar), which announced last week that the two companies would not start full-scale mining, but will continue to test for the viability of both conventional oil and tar sands extraction.  

Basically, this means mining has been...

Tom Shelton, Handicap International UK

Leading financial institutions, both in the UK and worldwide, are continuing to invest billions of dollars in companies producing cluster munitions, despite these weapons being banned under international law, according to a new report released last week.

The report by Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) members IKV Pax Christi and Netwerk Vlaanderen1 shows that worldwide, 166 private and public financial institutions from 15 countries continue to invest in companies that produce cluster munitions. Since the Convention on Cluster Munitions was adopted in May 2008, the global amount invested in companies that still produce cluster munitions totals US$39 billion.

The human and economic cost of cluster munitions is well-documented. The weapons cause widespread harm on impact and unexploded submunitions pose a threat to civilians for decades to come. Over the last 40 years, cluster munitions have killed and injured thousands of civilians and continue to do so today. 

...

Yesterday’s announcement by deputy prime minister Nick Clegg that the UK Green Investment Bank will start operating in April 2012 is good news. But the coalition’s claims to be the “greenest government ever” ring pretty hollow as long as bailed-out bank Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) continues to use taxpayers’ money to finance projects like tar sands extraction in Madagascar.
Tar sands mining by RBS-financed companies has already devastated the lands of First Nations people in Alberta, Canada. Now the bank is financing French oil giant Total’s tar-sands mining in poverty-stricken Madagascar – a project which threatens the climate, the unique biodiversity of Madagascar and the human rights of hundreds of thousands of  people living around the mining areas.

A step-change in green investment is needed to meet the UK’s climate targets and to provide clean development opportunities for countries like Madagascar. The chancellor of the exchequer has the power to cure RBS of its oil-addiction and direct its finance into much needed low carbon technologies. The government must use its majority shareholding in RBS to ensure that the bailed-out bank’s investment policies are brought in line with those of the Green...

A human rights campaigner from Madagascar is in the UK this week to demand that the Royal Bank of Scotland withdraw its financing of companies mining tar sands in her country.

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has a long track record of financing companies operating in the Canadian tar sands, which are devastating the land and lives of First Nations people in Alberta. The bank has also financed French oil giant Total’s test mining of tar sands in Madagascar over the last three years. Total is expected to decide next month whether to go ahead with larger scale exploitation of tar sands in the country.  If it does, the water supply of more than 120,000 people in one of Madagascar’s poorest areas could be disrupted and poisoned and its unique biodiversity severely threatened.

Malagasy woman Holly Rakotondralambo, who represents a coalition of community organisations from Madagascar, will visit London, Edinburgh and Glasgow this week in a tour organised by the World...

Liz Murray,  head of Scottish campaigns

So we met with RBS yesterday, after having protested outside their AGM and the First Nations activists going in to question the board.  It was a year since we first met the Chairman and his colleagues on this issue, and we do have to ask ourselves if we’ve made progress, and if it was worth it. 

Of course, I’m an optimist, so on balance I’d say yes, it was worth it.  We were able to continue to voice our concerns direct to senior executives and we learnt that RBS has clearly heard our campaign message, realises that things have to change and may be beginning to shift. We heard that a stronger policy is being developed on these issues, which is progress.  Of course only time will tell whether this will be strong enough, but there’s no doubt that if we weren’t putting on the pressure, it wouldn’t even be on the table. 

We’re still very clear that, having been bailed out with such a huge amount of public money, RBS has a responsibility to operate in a way that benefits the public good – and that means switching their investment strategy away from a purely commercially driven one and towards an ethical and environmental one.   We need to see concrete policies on financing...

Press release, 19th April 2011

• Canadian First Nations representatives to voice opposition in person at RBS AGM
• New research shows that, since public bail-out in 2008, RBS has raised more than £5.6 billion for companies involved in controversial Canadian tar sands projects, £2.2 billion of which was in the last twelve months

Representatives from some of Canada’s First Nations are today preparing to demand in person that the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) stops financing the controversial tar sands industry in Alberta, Canada, at the bank’s AGM today. [1]

The protest comes as new research, published by a coalition of UK and North American NGOs, shows that since being bailed out with public money in 2008, RBS has raised £5.6 billion in corporate financing to companies involved in Alberta’s tar sands extraction and pipeline development, £2.2 billion of which was in the last twelve months. [2]

The First Nations representatives are expected to arrive at the AGM at RBS’s global head quarters in Gogarburn, Edinburgh, at 1pm. They will take into the AGM a photo petition and motions from UK taxpayers angry that the bank is investing their money in tar sands extraction and use the meeting to call on the board to cease financing tar sands...

Thousands of lives are under threat from French oil giant Total’s plans to mine tar sands in Melaky, one of the poorest regions in Madagascar. Using taxpayers’ money, the bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland is helping to finance this heavily polluting industry. With your help, we can push the UK government to stop our money supporting companies that harm the world’s poor.

The Bemolanga oil field is located in one of Madagascar’s poorest regions. In the Melaky region 70% of the population live below the poverty line and 50% of children under the age of three have stunted growth due to malnutrition. The tar sands will threaten the survival of villagers throughout the region and could pave the way for further exploitation of tar sands the world over. We must not allow this to happen.

Iain Thom, Scottish campaigns assistant

Would you let an arms company sponsor National Peace Week? How about the BNP sponsoring International Refugee Day, or Lambert & Butler logos all over a cancer charity fundraising event? These (imaginary) examples seem far-fetched, but they’re no less strange than a climate action week sponsored by a coal-burning energy corporation, an oil-hungry supermarket giant and the UK’s biggest financier of fossil fuel projects. Welcome to the strange, topsy-turvy world of Climate Week."

 - Danny Chivers author of the 'No-Nonsense Guide to Climate Change' writing for The Ecologist.

You might have noticed this week is Climate Week, a showcase of Britain’s ambition and confidence to...

All over the world, diverse groups from community activists to schoolchildren, small businesses to faith-based networks, are starting to take action on climate change. Big business is following suit, but often with tactics that bring their integrity into question. Climate change is being used to create a new kind of brand identity, without any of the fundamental changes needed to tackle the root causes of the problem itself – the use of fossil fuels.

This report, written by environmental campaigners Platform with the help of WDM, takes the case of the Royal Bank of Scotland, an international bank with interests across the fossil fuel sector that is promoting itself as a genuine actor in climate change efforts. Using Bloomberg data this report compares RBS’ environmental rhetoric with the bank’s financing of coal companies around the world in the last three years, and examines the efforts of civil society to date to pressure the bank to adopt more climate-friendly policies.

RBS was recapitalised by the UK taxpayer from 2008 onwards, following major losses due to their reckless financial practices. Now, in 2011, the British public faces massive spending cuts. The taxpayers’ money used to bail out the banks could have...

Iain Thom, Scottish campaigns assistant

Timed for release just as this year’s round of bonuses and bank profits are announced, documentary film ‘Inside Job’ does just what it says on the reel tin:  Director Charles Ferguson argues that both investment bankers and financial regulators knew that the way banks and hedge funds turned a profit was rotten to the core, but that they carried on regardless. 

In short, that the 2008 financial crisis was avoidable.

Authoritative US professors and industry figures are interviewed, including the ubiquitous George Soros, but there is also a long list of names that refused to appear, the food commodity traders Goldman Sachs high up on that list.  The interviews are widely interspersed with narrative shots but sometimes I felt the chopping and changing did not allow the personalities to come through.

The film is almost exclusively US-based.  We learn of bankers who earned massive bonuses on short-term profits in a mortgage market with incentives so perverse it was set up to fail, and of regulators staffed by people who made millions from the rotten system and who simply did not do their job.

Foreclosures and job losses across the US as a result of the credit crunch cardiac arrest and...

As bailed-out bank RBS publishes details of its 2010 financial results, campaigners call on the government to cure RBS of its high-risk oil addition. RBS’s results show that it is still not making a profit and today’s photo call highlights the unhealthy investments of an unhealthy bank.

Campaigners from the World Development Movement and Friends of the Earth Scotland are urging the government, as majority shareholder in the bank, to use its power to switch the investments of the Royal Bank of Scotland away from climate-damaging fossil fuels and instead to finance much-needed low carbon industries.

At the Treasury, campaigners delivered over a thousand postcards signed by taxpayers angry at the Government for letting RBS use their money to finance projects and companies that are worsening climate change and threatening human rights.

A campaigner dressed as an RBS banker, addicted to fossil fuels, lay 'unconscious' on the pavement outside the Treasury this morning, having overdosed on oil while another dressed as a doctor tried to cure the banker of his oil addiction.

RBS is the UK bank that has been most heavily involved in financing the global coal industry and companies mining tar sands in Canada. Since being bailed out in October 2008, RBS has...

Martin Bowman, campaigns and policy intern

2010 is surely the year of the octopus, if controversially. The death threats that were sent to Paul the psychic octopus have shown the capacity of our bulbous eight-legged friends to galvanize public opinion. If harmless football score predictions fuelled such anger, let us hope that Paul was just a warm-up act for this next aquatic provocateur. Enter: the Giant Vampire Squid.

Being compared to a Giant Vampire Squid is not particularly desirable, but it’s probably another insult to add to the pile for investment banks like Goldman Sachs. The name was first given to them by the journalist Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone, saying that investment banks are like: “a giant vampire squid wrapped round the face of humanity”. The new economics foundation (nef), backed by a variety of groups including Compass and the Post Bank campaign, have picked up this neat little metaphor, and made it the basis of their fantastic new video, which I urge you to watch and shout / facebook / tweet to the hills:

...

Watch our new film, be inspired and join us in the fight for climate justice - Cleaning up the Royal Bank of Scotland

Fossil fuel fanatics, and bailed-out bank, RBS are investing our money in the most destructive project on earth; tar sands mining in Canada. They're fuelling climate change and trampling on human rights. Indigenous activists from Canada joined us in protests at the RBS 2010 AGM. 

Please share with your friends and networks!

Take action: Stop taxpayers' money funding climate change
Email the chancellor today - http://www.wdm.org.uk/tarsands

WDM mourns the passing of Lord Bingham who presided over the Pergau Dam case.

When WDM took the government to court last year, and on appeal, earlier this year, I was left with a heavy heart and an empty feeling about the state of our judiciary. Our case was questioning whether or not the government had done a full environmental assessment (as required in policy) of RBS’ holdings, before part-nationalising the bank. The issue of climate change appeared not to register in the minds of the judges at all, while the line of the government – that it was their prerogative to interpret what environmental impact meant and how they undertook the assessment, stood firm. Listening to both judges who presided over the cases, I couldn’t help thinking “you don’t represent me, or the majority of people in the World, so how do you come to make life or death decisions on our behalf?” The appeal court judge, in particular, offered what I felt were rather ill-informed and callous remarks, coming from someone who must shut himself off from the reality of modern times: “Well, I don’t see what a bank’s investments have to do with climate change”, he said in his summation.

This is a long way from the former lord chief justice, Lord Bingham, who died on Saturday. A fiercely independent...

WDM condemns the link between public money and Cairn’s Arctic drilling. RBS underwrote loan to oil company one month before it acquired rig for arctic drilling.

A coalition of environmental and social justice organisations in the UK are condemning the use of public money through the 83% publicly-owned RBS to provide finance for Cairn energy that may have enabled them to start controversial offshore drilling in Arctic Greenland.

See coverage on Cairn's Greenland drilling here - Quest for oil reaches Earth’s final frontier - Herald

The revelation was made during the weekend that Camp for Climate Action was taking place at the Edinburgh headquarters of RBS [1] and a few days before the Greenpeace boat, the Esperanza, was challenged by a Danish warship near the Cairn rig. [2]

Edinburgh-based oil company Cairn Energy have started drilling in the Davis Straits off the coast of Greenland, nicknamed 'Iceberg Alley and close to where the recent Petermann glacier broke away. According to research that was revealed in the Sunday Herald, [3] RBS loaned $100 million to Cairn Energy on 11 December 2009, and then on 21 December 2009 it...

Sharon Jordan

Over the weekend hundreds of people concerned about human rights abuses and the environment have gathered outside the headquarters of the Royal Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh. They’ve set up camp for four days to educate and campaign against the root causes of climate change.

After mobilising and helping stop the proposed third runway at Heathrow and a new coal fired power station at Kingsnorth, this growing mass movement is reclaiming our future from government and profit-hungry corporations.

Since the bank bail-out in 2008, the UK government has used a staggering £45.5 billion of UK taxpayers’ money – the GDP of Kenya and Tanzania combined – to prop up the Royal Bank of Scotland.

And RBS has been using that public money to finance projects and companies that are wrecking the climate and threatening human rights, such as tar sand extraction in Canada.

The Royal Bank of Scotland has been a Scottish institution for nearly 300 years, with its headquarters in Edinburgh. The £45.5 billion bail-out has left more than 80% of RBS owned by the UK taxpayer.

We have the right to demand that the government rein in the power of RBS, and the other bailed-out banks, and force them to keep to the highest environmental and human...

A new WDM/PLATFORM report released today finds that transforming the Royal Bank of Scotland into the Green Investment Bank would kick start the green energy revolution.  The research, by former Pricewaterhouse Coopers consultant, James Leaton, finds that it would bring 50,000 new green jobs a year, boost the UK economy, reduce the UK's carbon emissions and improve international competitiveness - whilst not increasing the budget deficit.

It has recently been reported that amidst confusion and wrangling between George Osbourne and Vince Cable, the government may scrap plans to invest public money in a Green Investment Bank. Instead the government may rely on private capital to fund green projects such as wind farms, high-speed rail and electric cars.

The report was commissioned by pressure group PLATFORM and the anti-poverty campaigners, World Development Movement, who are campaigning for RBS to end its investment in high carbon projects. They reject the premise that investment in a green economy should be scrapped due to public sector cuts.

Deborah Doane, director of the World Development Movement, said: “It would be completely irresponsible and short-sighted to scrap public investment in a low carbon economy. RBS is sitting on billions of...

David Cameron has announced today that his government will be the 'greenest government' ever. We welcome the sentiment but we are sceptical and said that ‘history will judge this government on its green credentials by its policies to cut the UK’s emissions dramatically and getting a fair international climate deal, not by turning off its lights at night.’

Deborah Doane, director of the World Development Movement said:

"The Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition has brought some progress for achieving climate justice. Whilst it's welcome that central government has pledged to cut its emissions by 10 per cent, history will judge this government on its green credentials by its policies to cut the UK’s emissions dramatically and getting a fair international climate deal, not by turning off its lights at night. It doesn't take the scale of the problem seriously, any suggestion that blue and yellow means green government are premature because there are so many unanswered questions about the policies.

"The Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition has brought some campaign successes for climate justice. But it has also left a lot of unanswered questions, and media reports suggesting that blue and yellow = green government seem potentially premature."

The...

I’ve been campaigning for stronger corporate accountability for a fairly long time. So it should come as no surprise to me that I don’t generally see eye to eye with corporate executives. But sometimes, just sometimes, you hope the facts speak for themselves – and that those corporate executives would have a sudden attack of conscience. So when a group of us met with RBS executives in Edinburgh after their AGM, we hoped the facts would speak for themselves.

When we were invited to meet with Sir Philip Hampton, RBS Group Chairman, and several of his team in public affairs and corporate sustainability, we of course thought the meeting had an air of PR spin to it.  But we also thought that perhaps, if only because they had made a serious endeavour to move the meeting and accommodate us (Chairmen don’t generally accommodate), they were prepared to move every so slightly on their position.

Canadian First Nations campaigners Eriel Deranger, and Heather Milton Lightning spoke poignantly about what was happening in their communities as a result of the tar sands mining just up river. Human, health and environmental disasters are what the tar sands are all about - an energy resource that’s six-times more carbon intensive than conventional fossil fuels, scarring an...

I’ve been campaigning for stronger corporate accountability for a fairly long time. So it should come as no surprise to me that I don’t generally see eye to eye with corporate executives. But sometimes, just sometimes, you hope the facts speak for themselves – and that those corporate executives would have a sudden attack of conscience. So when a group of us met with RBS executives in Edinburgh after their AGM, we hoped the facts would speak for themselves.

When we were invited to meet with Sir Philip Hampton, RBS Group Chairman, and several of his team in public affairs and corporate sustainability, we of course thought the meeting had an air of PR spin to it.  But we also thought that perhaps, if only because they had made a serious endeavour to move the meeting and accommodate us (Chairman don’t generally accommodate), they were prepared to move every so slightly on their position.

Canadian First Nations campaigners Eriel Deranger, and Heather Milton Lightning spoke poignantly about what was happening in their communities as a result of the tar sands mining just up river. Human, health and environmental disasters are what the tar sands are all about - an energy resource that’s six-times more carbon intensive than conventional fossil fuels, scarring an...

Protests are underway across the UK targeting the RBS AGM over its investments in toxic projects and companies. In London, protesters gathered outside the Threadneedle Street RBS branch and a tar sands digger was used to highlight the devastating impact of extracting tar sands on Indigenous communities’ land and lives.

Elsewhere in the UK, hundreds of protestors are targeting local branches of RBS demanding that their bank stops using public funds to finance 'the most destructive and devastating companies in the world', such as tar sands and mining companies because of the impact on indigenous communities and climate change.

In Edinburgh, shareholders are entering the RBS AGM now and are being greeted by protesters from Friends of the Earth Scotland, Amnesty International Scotland, SEAD, Rainforest Action Network, Indigenous Environmental Network, all angry about RBS investing in tar sands and mining companies.

Canadian indigenous activist and campaigner for the Rainforest Action Network, Eriel Tchekwie Deranger will...

Kate Blagojevic, used to be press officer

The PR tactic of organising a meeting with your opponents days before a protest or critical report is launched is as old as the hills. But it can still be disarming.

WDM has been working with PLATFORM and People & Planet for a year on the campaign to get RBS to stop investing our money in dirty and unethical companies and projects. During that time, we have repeatedly asked for meetings with high level reps from RBS to explain why they are the target of our campaign so that they will see that we are talking sense. They have always ignored us or offered us a meeting with their head of corporate sustainability, Andrew Cave. With no disrespect to Andrew, a meeting with the head of corporate sustainability of the bank that's got a track record of investing in the most unsustainable fossil fuel projects in the world is as useful as a chocolate teapot. We need to get in higher up, with someone who we can talk about the real issues with, rather than getting the corporate, green-washed brush off.

On Friday with just days to go before nation-wide protests, including outside the conference centre in Edinburgh, RBS has offered us a meeting with Andrew and the Chair of RBS, Sir Philip Hampton. We're happy to have this...

WDM, together with People and Planet, have called a week of action to stop RBS from investing our money in dirty and unethical projects such as tar sands.

Wednesday 28 April is RBS’ AGM. Demonstrations will be happening outside the AGM conference and outside RBS branches across the UK to protest against the investment of our money in tar sands companies linked to human rights abuses of indigenous communities.

In Scotland, WDM will be joining forces with Amnesty International, Friends of the Earth Scotland, People & Planet and SEAD to organise a protest outside the AGM centre. Eriel Deranger, a Rainforest Action Network activist, who is from an indigenous community affected by tar sands extraction, will be speaking inside the AGM.

In London, WDM and People & Planet will be using a ‘tar sands digger’ to demand a stop to RBS using our money to invest in ‘blood oil’ and other destructive projects. We will be stopping by an undisclosed RBS branch, the Treasury and the House of Commons to make sure our message is being heard.

WDM and People & Planet groups are going to be making their voices heard outside RBS branches in major cities across the country. The map below shows which cities are being targeted.

In today's budget Alistair Darling announced details of a £2 billion fund for a Green Investment Bank. We are welcoming the sentiment but are sceptical that the amount will make sufficient impact.

WDM is arguing that public money spent by the Royal Bank of Scotland on financing fossil fuel projects will mean that the Green Investment Bank fund will be 'throwing good money after bad'.

Deborah Doane, director of the World Development Movement said: “A Green Investment Bank is a good idea but we need far more than the £2 billion on offer to transform the UK into a low carbon economy. In order to achieve this, Alistair Darling must instruct RBS to use public money for exactly the kinds of projects it wants to fund under a Green investment Bank, rather than pouring billions from the public purse into companies that are heavily involved in tar sands extraction, mining and weapons manufacturing.

"The government's hands-off policy has allowed RBS to scale back its investment in renewable projects since the bail out and to support fossil fuel companies to the tune of $7.5 billion over the last three years. Some of these companies are heavily involved in tar sands operations that are devastating the rights of Indigenous Peoples in Canada and directly contributing...

Euro-MPs yesterday voted overwhelmingly in favour of an EU "Robin Hood tax" on banks to help fund low-carbon development programmes for poor countries.

Last month the campaign for a global tax on banks' financial transactions was launched as a way of raising money to fight poverty, tackle climate change and boost public services. The Robin Hood tax is a way to re-balance the books after the economic damage wreaked by financial excesses.

The tax would be levied on every financial transaction between financial institutions, not on transactions conducted by individuals. The tax could raise billions to plough into combating poverty and tackling climate change at home and around the world.

A resolution approved by 536-80 votes said a 'Financial Transaction Tax' could be used for "innovative financing" for tackling climate change or vital development projects. It backed a worldwide tax but asked the European Commission to look into how to implement such a tax at EU level if a global agreement cannot be reached.

The endorsement from the European Parliament is a step in the right direction in making the banks and hedge funds pay for the crisis, slow down predatory speculation and provide the funding needed to tackle climate change. Keep checking our website or...

Global capitalism has entered a fundamental crisis of legitimacy, triggered by a ‘perfect storm’ of the banking meltdown, rising energy costs and a spike in world food prices. Governments in the world’s richest countries are looking on in horror as the debt and fossil-fuelled fantasies on which they have built their political mythologies crumble around them.

Amongst those witnessing the recent self-immolation of the financial system have been the world’s two billion poorest people, for whom the credit crunch is a permanent way of life. As a grim footnote to the main headlines about down-and-out bankers, the UN’s distinctly unglamorous Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) recently announced that rising food prices have plunged an additional 75 million people below the hunger threshold in the past year. This has brought the estimated number of undernourished people to a staggering 923 million worldwide.

This is the real evidence that 30 years of financial deregulation, trade liberalisation and reckless fossil fuel consumption has failed spectacularly to deliver just or sustainable progress. The end of the end of history...

The World Development Movement are today announcing a week of protests to be held simultaneously with the RBS AGM on Wednesday 28 April. This will involve protests outside the AGM centre in Edinburgh and RBS branches across the UK. We and oher organisations will be calling for a moratorium on RBS investments in tar sands because of their devastating impact on human rights and the climate.

Deborah Doane, director of the World Development Movement said: "It's deeply concerning to learn that so much of our money is being used to provide finance for tar sands extraction. These investments have a devastating impact on the lives of Indigenous communities in Canada, while fuelling climate change, just to service the rich world’s unquenchable thirsty for dirty energy.

"The consequences of climate change are already hitting the world's poorest people the hardest, and this completely cancels out efforts we take nationally to prevent catastrophic climate change. This is a huge injustice and during our week of protest we will be demanding that investment of our money into this 'blood oil' be stopped immediately."

This announcement coincides with the news that RBS have been involved in providing loans worth $7.5 billion in the last three years to...

The World Development Movement reacted angrily to today's Royal Bank of Scotland's annual results and bonuses announcements.

WDM is campaigning for RBS to phase out its investments in mining companies like Vedanta and projects, like oil extraction from tar sands that are linked with controversial human rights violations. They are arguing that the bonuses awarded for investments that hurt the lives of ordinary people and the publically owned bank should be benefitting society in the UK and around the world.

Julian Oram, head of policy at the World Development Movement said:
"What really annoys people is what these top bankers are being paid their bonuses for. Is it for investing public money into job-creating small businesses, better public transport systems or a greener economy that benefits society as a whole? No. It's for trying to make a quick buck out of dirty and destructive projects like tar sands that make bankers rich but everyone else worse off.

"Until the government directs RBS and the other bailed out banks to linking bonuses to 'doing good' rather than acting with the same callous disregard to fairness, or people and the planet that they have over recent years people will continue to get riled by issue of executive pay."

...

Julian Oram, used to be Head of Policy and Campaigns

Here’s a puzzler: what is the UK’s biggest contributor to climate change? Did you answer coal? Good guess, but no. Transport? It’s a biggy for sure, but not the largest. Farming? A distant fourth.

Give up? OK, Britain’s number one contributor is… the banking industry! And top of the list within the sector is the taxpayers’ very own, and much unloved, Royal Bank of Scotland.

If this sounds improbable, consider this snippet from actuary consultant Nick Silver:

...Embedded emissions from project finance attributable to RBS was 44 M tonnes of CO2 in 2006, greater than Scotland’s national emissions. However, most of these projects were in collaboration with other lenders and the total annual emissions from these projects was 825 M tonnes of CO2, significantly more than the UK’s total direct emissions and 3% of global emissions. So, through its ownership of RBS, the government potentially has a larger influence on global carbon emissions than it does through all domestic activities.

I had to re-read this passage several times over, so staggering were its implications. Staggering due to the...

• Last November's £25 billion cash injection deemed 'unlawful' by campaigners
• Treasury's intervention in bankers' bonuses strengthens campaigners case

Three pressure groups today served the Treasury with their application to the High Court, challenging last November's decision to provide a further £25 billion of public money to the Royal Bank of Scotland.

According to the Treasury's guidance, when determining if and how public money is spent, an assessment of the likely impact the proposed spending will have on human rights and the environment has to be completed before the money can be provided. The World Development Movement, PLATFORM and People & Planet believe that no proper assessment was undertaken and that the Treasury have failed to adequately calculate the negative impact of allowing RBS to invest taxpayers' money into harmful projects.

The same groups took the Treasury to the High Court last year where one of reasons given by the Treasury for not ensuring public money invested in RBS is spent in a way consistent with its own commitments on human rights and climate change is that such a restriction would be harmful to the “financial stability” of the bank. The Treasury also argued that to use RBS’ need for capital as a mechanism...

Press release from WDM ally Jubilee Debt Campaign

The British government was told today to take some responsibility for the debt crisis which Iceland is facing. Jubilee Debt Campaign, which works for the cancellation of unpayable and unjust ‘Third World Debt’, called on the British government to support a neutral debt arbitration system to radically reform international lending.

The group said that Iceland’s President was correct to assert that states in debt have rights that trump the rights of creditors to bleed their economies dry, adding that Iceland's crisis mirrored the even more serious plight of many developing countries.

Jubilee Debt Campaign argues that the Icesave dispute highlights the way that the international lending system tends to turn a deficit into a crisis by laying the full responsibility for debt on the debtor. Together with the absence of insolvency procedures for sovereign states, this means that indebted countries have no protection from unpayable or unjust debts and can be forced to repay irresponsible loans, at high rates of interest, even if basic services to its citizens are neglected. In developing countries this has devastating effects. 

...

A year ago, the British public became the majority shareholder in the Royal Bank of Scotland and to make this inauspicious anniversary, this weekend 40 leading figures including environmental and anti poverty campaigners, faith groups, trade unions, academia, MPs and the author Iain Banks have written to Alistair Darling to call on him to transform RBS into a Royal Bank of Sustainability.

The group have asked the Treasury to ensure that it and other publicly-backed banks help pay for Britain's transition from a high-carbon economy with rising unemployment to a low carbon-society that provides millions of green jobs and better public services.

In the strongly worded letter, the group accused the Treasury of failing to stop taxpayers' money being used by RBS to finance climate change and human rights abuses that spans the globe from Wales to India to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The World Development Movement, People & Planet and PLATFORM have commissioned a report that sets out the business case for transforming the bank into the Royal Bank of Sustainability. The report argues that UKFI, the company set up to manage the government's shares in the bailed-out banks, should take an 'active...

On Tuesday an unprecedented legal battle took place in the High Court over the Treasury's failure to stop the publicly owned Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) investing in what campaigners describe as 'some of the most environmentally damaging and socially irresponsible projects and companies around.'

Update:

High Court decision: Treasury can ignore climate change and human rights in RBS' investments

Today's oral hearing will determine whether their claim can proceed to a full substantive hearing, likely to take place early next year. The Treasury has hired one of its top barristers, James Eadie QC, to handle the case.

This is a classic David and Goliath battle. But we believe we have a strong case. The Treasury's decision to allow RBS to continue to invest in companies that exacerbate climate change and are linked to human rights abuses is unlawful, immoral and undemocratic. Hopefully, this case will be a pivotal point in ending RBS' destructive lending habits that go against the...

Towards a Royal Bank of Sustainability:
protecting taxpayers’ interests;
cutting carbon risk By Nick Silver

This report has been prepared with data supplied by Investor Watch and PLATFORM. I would like to thank Mel Evans, James Marriott and Kevin Smith (PLATFORM), Julian Oram, Deborah Doane and Kate Blagojevic (World Development Movement), Duncan McLaren (Friends of the Earth – Scotland), Chris Hewett (Green Alliance), Howard Reed (Landman Economics), Ian Leggett and Louise Hazan (People & Planet), Mark Campanale and Conor Riffle (Investor Watch) for help in preparing the report.

At the conclusion of the G20 summit, world leaders heralded the birth of a new economic system. In reality, their plans were designed to prop up an international regime still grossly skewed towards their own economic clout and historical power.

Proposed reforms to the IMF will do little to change the balance of power in favour of the global south. Currently, twelve wealthy countries – out of 186 members – hold over half of the votes. As even Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the IMF recognised, other countries “don’t trust it because it’s US and West Europe-dominated. That’s not fair.” However, the G20 called for as little as five per cent of votes to be transferred to emerging economies. Such a move is a minimal concession to shifting economic realities, let alone democratic global governance.

The IMF has been accorded a prominent role in the handling of the financial crisis. In April, the G20 decided to increase the Fund’s lending capacity by 50 per cent to $750 billion, of which $100 billion was to go to developing countries. Then at the latest summit, it was agreed that the IMF would oversee compliance with objectives set by G20 members each year to achieve a ‘balanced’ global economy. This is a sticking plaster to deal with the devastation of...

High up in the news agenda this week has been the Vestas wind turbine factory occupation and RBS' interim profits. Not stories that people automatically assume resonate with the work of the World Development Movement but what ties these, at first glance, disparate strands of news together is climate justice. And that means justice for the workers at Vestas, who are fighting for their jobs; justice for climate-conscious tax payers, who are fighting for their money to be used wisely; and justice for the world's poorest people, who are fighting for their lives.

The workers at Vestas have been putting up a fight not only in attempt to protect their jobs, or better their meager redundancy package, but also because they are proud that they have genuinely green jobs, and know that the UK needs more of these jobs, not fewer.

RBS continues to lend to dirty and destructive energy companies, when it should be contributing to a more sustainable and ethical future for us all. Although last week Ed Miliband announced he would influence RBS to invest in wind power, it's unclear at this stage whether it will happen. But it is clear that our money will be put to the best use by RBS investing in a low carbon future rather than in undemocratic regimes and environmentally...

The government has been roundly criticised from various quarters for the use of public cash to bail out and prop up RBS. Scandals over Sir Fred's pension and now the ten million pound salary and bonus package for the new RBS boss have been grabbing headlines and stoking public outrage. And rightly so. Now the World Development Movement, along with PLATFORM and People and Planet, have dealt a further blow to the government's hands off approach to how it manages the billions of pounds of taxpayers' money poured into the self-styled 'oil and gas' bank. We launched a legal action today to challenge the Treasury's disastrous decision to finance RBS but ignore the government's own environment and human rights criteria to check that taxpayers' money is not spent in a harmful way.

Before launching the judicial review of this decision, Platform wrote to the Treasury to ask why they decided to ignore the fact that public money was being spent to fund a bank that is known for financing high carbon projects, several of which have also been linked to serious human rights concerns. The answer came back that 'environmental and human rights records of individual banks were of no relevance'. The excuse was that taking these considerations into account wouldn't be in the public interest...

Green New Deal

In response to the overlapping economic, climate change and energy crises, the World Development Movement is calling for a Green New Deal for the world’s poor. A Green New Deal means investment in low-carbon projects, renewable energy and green jobs. It also aims to bring about greater economic equality by restructuring the financial system to support a green transition.

This approach links radical reform of the global financial system with a massive green investment programme to enable poor countries to pursue low-carbon, socially equitable development pathways. It is about redirecting credit away from the speculative casino economy and towards the real productive economy, particularly public infrastructure in the developing world. It involves a package of measures to channel both public and private financial flows into poor countries to develop green energy, transport and construction sectors, and to build a ‘carbon army’ of new jobs in the green economy that could lift millions out of poverty.

The Green New Deal is about a massive environmental transformation of the economy to tackle the triple crunch of the financial crisis, climate change and insecure energy supplies. Specifically, it is about:

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