Edinburgh University Students Association ban RBS from advertising on campus
Banned from campus during Freshers' Week, RBS will not be allowed back until the bank changes its climate damaging investment practices.
Edinburgh P&P protest against ‘The Oil Bank of Scotland’ as the bank tries to sign up freshers
Making the decision to ban RBS advertising, the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) also voted to call on the university to sell all of its shares in RBS. RBS usually sets up a porta cabin in George Square, Edinburgh, during Freshers’ Week and markets itself heavily as the primary student bank, encouraging Edinburgh University students to bank with it. However, following the vote at the students’ association it will no longer be able to do this.
Edinburgh students are angry that RBS is the UK’s largest funder of the oil, coal and gas industry, in 2006 responsible for more carbon emissions than the whole of Scotland. Between May 2006 and April 2008, RBS participated in 27 loans, totalling nearly $96bn, to the coal industry, including loans to E.ON, the company behind the highly controversial bid to build a new coal fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent. RBS’s investments are fuelling climate chaos.
Post-bail out RBS have continued to invest into climate changing fossil fuel projects, though this time it is public money they are ploughing into climate insecurity. Most controversially, they have financed oil exploration in formerly untouched regions of Greenland’s Arctic and fueled conflict by pumping $100 million into oil extraction on the Congo-Uganda border in March 2009. During March alone 30,000 people were displaced from this region due to conflict exacerbated by struggles over resources.
Adam Ramsay, EUSA president, said:
If RBS carry on investing in coal, oil and gas we face a bleak future of climatic catastrophe. RBS are the UK’s most irresponsible bank. We can’t recommend to our students that they use a bank which is selling off their future.
The politics of climate change is complex. But one fact is fairly simple. If we burn all the fossil fuels in known reserves my generation faces a future of climate catastrophe. If we invest in finding new oil and gas to burn, we don’t have a hope of averting disaster. If we choose to build new coal power stations, we are choosing to trash our children’s hopes.
The Students’ Representative Council (SRC) passed policy at its AGM in 2008 which gave RBS until 2009 to clean up its act or the SRC would take further action. The students’ association will now not accept advertising from RBS until it changes its investment practices with regards to fossil fuel investment.
Take action to get RBS-NatWest to Ditch Dirty Development
Lobby your MP to sign EDM 880: RBS and Climate Change, calling for environmental regulation on the banks lending decisions.
Pledge to Boycott RBS-NatWest if they fail to clean up their dirty, climate changing investments.
