Demonstrators in Bexhill

Activists target Bexhill’s coal-financing banks

Campaigners from the Bexhill and Hastings World Development Movement (WDM) group held a Stop Bankrolling Coal walking tour of Bexhill on Saturday 19 July, to highlight the role of UK high street banks in financing the destructive coal industry worldwide. Christina Lucey reports.

The tour visited the biggest bankrollers of the global coal boom, revealing hidden stories about each bank’s involvement in dirty coal. Using a mock-up of a coal train, campaigners set off from Devonshire Square inviting passers-by to join them on their journey to HSBC, followed by NatWest (RBS), Lloyds and Barclays. At each bank campaigners proclaimed loudly its huge investment in coal. Members of the public were invited to take leaflets and cards giving more information.

Between 2005 and 2013, UK banks poured £12 billion into coal mining. Coal projects financed by UK banks have had devastating effects on communities living where the coal is found. In Colombia, whole villages have been wiped from the map by the Cerrejón coal mine, while in Indonesia coal mining is destroying the rainforests and polluting the rivers that indigenous people rely on.

Denis Lucey from the Bexhill and Hastings WDM group said: “The government must take its commitment to tackle climate change seriously, and stop the UK finance sector pouring money into coal, oil and gas. Banks often use ordinary people’s money to fuel these industries, which destroy the lives of local people as well as the global climate, yet we have no say in what they do with it. We need tough regulation to force the banks to pull out of fossil fuels.”

For further information please contact Denis Lucey on 01424 845225 or luceys@talktalk.net.

Full information on this campaign can be found at www.wdm.org.uk/carbon-capital.

See also Local activists protest against EU-US trade deal.

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