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Let's be friendsParliament committee to investigate RBS-NatWest climate funding
A Parliamentary committee has announced it is going to investigate how the bailed-out banks, including the Royal Bank of Scotland, can be used to deliver a low carbon economy.
Indigenous Canadian activists pay visit to Parliament denoucing RBS’ role in financing tar sands.
A Parliamentary Committee has announced it is going to investigate the bailed-out banks’ role in the fight against climate change. The Environment Audit Committee will examine what the government can do with the banks it owns large sections of to help ensure a ‘transition to a low carbon economy’.
The announcement comes as a result of People & Planet highlighting the role of the bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland in financing projects driving climate change. People & Planet, along with the World Development Movement and PLATFORM recently launched a second legal challenge against the Treasury over their failure to stop RBS using public money to fund some of the most destructive projects on earth, while groups up and down the country have been collecting action cards to send to Alistair Darling, and organising stunts outside RBS branches.
The Committee is one of the official committees of Parliament and has members from all of the biggest parties. It will formally look at the question:
“what scope exists for UK Financial Investments to support the transition to a low-carbon economy within the rules that govern what it does, what could be done if these rules were changed and what would need to happen to make this possible.”
Louise Hazan, climate change campaigner for People & Planet said:
“I welcome the fact that the Environment Audit Committee has agreed to hold this investigation. RBS-NatWest’s funding of fossil fuel extraction is the UK’s biggest single contribution to climate change. Their misuse of public money is outrageous and it’s high time that members of parliament investigated ways in which the UK’s biggest publicly-owned bank could play a positive role in developing a low-carbon economy - instead of fuelling the climate crisis further.”
