Take Action
Irresponsible lending by profit-hungry banks has brought about an unparalleled financial crisis in the global economy. Because of its huge investments in highly-polluting fossil fuel projects and energy companies, Royal Bank of Scotland (which owns NatWest) plays a leading role in financing the climate crisis.
The Treasury bail out of RBS-NatWest comes at huge cost to the UK taxpayer, tying us all to the disasters which it finances. We have a responsibility to hold them accountable.
Support the legal challenge - take action now!
- Email the Treasury and tell them to stop spending public money on climate chaos
The government holds 75% of the bank’s voting shares, and has a fantastic opportunity to be both bold and responsible. The Treasury has the power to ensure that the Royal Bank of Scotland now becomes a force for good in the transition to a low carbon economy.
A government committed to leading the world on tackling climate change would require RBS-NatWest’s lending decisions to support renewable energies, companies and infrastructure, and cut its investment in high-risk, high-carbon projects and companies. We must convince the Treasury to stand up to the power of the finance sector.
Challenge the Treasury and your MP today!
Email the Treasury and tell them to stop spending public money on climate chaos
Lobby your MP to sign EDM 880: RBS and Climate Change
We’ve put an email together. Alternatively, why not personalise your message? This can increase the effectiveness of your action.
This action is no longer active.
When the action was active, this was our suggested text.
Stop RBS investments fuelling climate change
Dear Alistair Darling,
I am writing to express my concern that the Royal Bank of Scotland is using public money to perpetuate our dependence on high carbon fuels rather than investing in low carbon technologies, companies and infrastructure.
Climate change is arguably the single biggest threat facing humanity. If we are to have any hope of preventing runaway climate change, bold action is needed to make a rapid but managed transition away from carbon-intensive fossil fuels towards sustainable, renewable sources of energy. The UK government has been quicker than most to recognise the scale of the problem. I am now looking to you for decisive leadership to turn scientific understanding into firm policy direction.
The Treasury, as majority shareholder of a major financial institution with extensive involvement in the energy sector, is in a position of great responsibility. As the UK high street bank with largest investments in fossil fuel projects, RBS epitomises irresponsible lending, gambling with our future climate. The $2 billion lent by RBS to renewable energy projects in 2006 is a small proportion of the $10 billion lent to oil and gas projects in the same year. Even more damaging, is the $2.7 billion of public money lent to the tar sands industry since being bailed out. RBS has consistently refused to disclose the emissions resulting from the projects it finances, and refuses to acknowledge the responsibility it bears for them.
Since its initial re-capitalisation at public expense in October 2008, RBS has invested over $10 billion into fossil fuel projects and companies. Even worse, RBS has been a key player in financing controversial and unconventional oil projects. The bank has invested in Canadian tar sands, a high carbon source of oil which wreaks unparalleled environmental destruction. And since its recapitalisation, RBS have twice financed Tullow Oil whose controversial oil drilling along the Ugandan – Democratic Republic Congo border, an area that has, in recent years, suffered serious conflict and the displacement of civilians.
The Treasury should be ensuring that the long-term public interest is advanced by RBS's investments - and it simply cannot be in the public interest to continue to direct the bulk of its investments to high carbon forms of energy. The government should promptly require RBS
* to calculate and publish the embedded emissions resulting from its lending to fossil fuel projects and energy companies, * to set a cap on these emissions and annual targets for reducing them * to declare a moratorium on investing in unconventional oil projects, unabated coal-fired power stations and energy projects in fragile or critically important eco-systems such as rainforests and the polar regions. * to encourage RBS investments in companies, technologies and infrastructure which are essential to the development and expansion of renewable energy and to de-carbonise the economy.
Please inform me of the steps you are taking to ensure that RBS becomes a force for good in the transition to a low carbon economy.
Yours sincerely,
About RBS-NatWest’s dirty investments
RBS-NatWest has a long history of massive support to the fossil fuel industry. $10 billion was loaned by RBS-NatWest to oil and gas projects in 2006 alone, according to The Oil and Gas Bank report. In the past two years, they have injected $16 billion into 27 coal projects around the world. This includes participating in loans totalling $70 billion to E.On who plan to build Kingsnorth, the first coal power station in the UK for 30 years. For more information, download Platform’s latest report Cashing in on Coal.
RBS-NatWest have financed some of the most controversial fossil fuel projects around the world. This includes unconventional sources of oil, such as the Canadian tar sands. Tar sands take significantly more energy to extract and refine, subsequently emitting 80kg CO2 per barrel. This is around three times as much as conventional crude oil. Tar sands extraction leads to massive deforestation of ancient boreal forests, and poses devastating health risks to the First Nation communities which live in the vicinity. About 15% of the total known, global oil reserves are in the form of tar sands. Extracting and burning this oil would push us beyond any hope of stopping total climate chaos.
The Ditch Dirty Development campaign calls on RBS-NatWest to make a smooth and rapid transition away from fossil fuel finance to financing renewable energy projects. Now that the UK government owns 75% of RBS’s voting shares, we believe they have a responsibility to halt the devastating climate impact of the bank’s investments.
That’s why People & Planet, together with Platform and the World Development Movement (WDM), have started legal proceedings agianst the Treasury in the High Court. We are seeking a Judicial Review to stop the Royal Bank of Scotland pouring money into projects which are linked to climate change, environmental destruction and human rights violations.
For more information on the bail out of RBS, and how it interconnects with the climate crisis, visit our financial crisis page.
