Extinction Rebellion Targets Barclays Bank Again in Protest Against Fossil Fuel Funding

Published on: 31 Jan, 2023
Updated on: 1 Feb, 2023

By Hugh Coakley and Martin Giles

Members of Extinction Rebellion (XR) dressed as Suffragettes chained themselves together inside the Barclays bank branch in North Street yesterday (Januray 30) in a continuing national protest against the bank’s funding of fossil fuels.

Extinction Rebellion dressed as Suffragettes chained themselves together in the Guildford branch of Barclays Bank in North Street (January 30).

One of the protesters, Jenny Condit, said funding of fossil fuels is “killing us all” and must stop. She claimed Barclays Bank was the “main culprit” in the UK.

It is the second time the bank has been targetted in Guildford. In November 2022, protesters glued themselves to the banks windows (see ‘This is an Intervention’ -Extinction Rebellion Protest Against Bank’s Investment in Fossil Fuels). A Guildford Extinction Rebellion spokesperson said at the time: “If the UK banking sector was a country, it would be the world’s 9th biggest polluter.”

Surrey Police said they were aware of the protest they did not believe the protesters were committing any offence.

Click on the arrow to hear an interview with one of the XR protesters.

An XR spokesperson said the protest had been staged in “solidarity with the seven women from Extinction Rebellion who received a combined suspended jail sentence of two years last week at Southwark Crown Court in London for breaking the windows of Barclays HQ in Canary Wharf in April 2021”.

The protest did not appear to be disrupting customer service at the branch. A Barclays employee at the branch said that they had been given strict instructions to make no comment.

XR Protesters outside Barclays Bank in North Street.

A Barclays spokesperson later said: “We are determined to play our part in addressing the urgent and complex challenge of climate change. In March 2020 we were one of the first banks to set an ambition to become net zero by 2050, across all of our direct and indirect emissions, and we committed to align all of our financing activities with the goals and timelines of the Paris Agreement.

“In practice, this means 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 a target to facilitate $1 trillion of Sustainable and Transition financing by 2030 and we are investing £500 million of our own capital into climate-tech start-ups – both of which will support new green technologies and infrastructure projects that will build up low-carbon capacity and capability.”