Windows smashed as climate protesters target Barclays in Glasgow
The new Glasgow campus was attacked at 8am
Last updated 14th Nov 2022
Activists from the group Extinction Rebellion have smashed the windows of a branch of Barclays in their Glasgow campus demanding the banking company cut its ties with fossil fuel firms.
The group says they broke the glass at the Clyde Place Quay branch at 8am ahead of a demonstration outside the company's outlet later on Monday.
Police Scotland confirmed two men had been arrested, and investigations are ongoing.
Images released by XR show the window panes broken with three protesters holding up banners declaring "this is an intervention" and calling on the company to "stop funding Rosebank".
Oil field protest
Rosebank is an oil and gas field around 100 miles off the coast of the Shetland Island which First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was urged to help bring to a halt after she was approached by a climate protester at Cop27 in Sharm El-Sheikh last week.
The Glasgow protesters said the field had more than 500 million barrels of oil, and claim Barclays have provided Norwegian state-owned firm Equinor with $2.46 billion of backing since 2015.
In footage released by the group, police liaison officers can be seen at the bank with police vans and cars arriving as they held their banners.
It was one of a series of protests across the UK.
In Birmingham activists sprayed a message onto the glass doors of a Barclays branch before staging a sit-down protest on the pavement.
In Newcastle XR activists said they "invaded" a branch on Northumberland Street.
Fossil fuel funding
One Extinction Rebellion protester said they were taking the action because "Barclays are finding the destruction of our planet, and they are funding the destruction of our children's future".
"I cannot stand by and do nothing while Barclays fund the collapse of society," she said.
Alex Cochrane, of Extinction Rebellion Scotland, said that the bank were the "biggest funders of fossil fuel in Europe".
"Their greed is exploiting and creating a future of famine, displaced people and global suffering," he said.
"We all know we need to wean ourselves off fossil fuels. We all know the climate crisis is already hitting us yet Barclays still refuses to do the right thing for us.
"For all our sakes, they must stop using our money to fund fossil fuels."
The group claimed the action in Scotland's biggest city followed in the footsteps of suffragettes and the Ploughshares movement, "using nonviolent direct action and causing damage to property to prevent and draw attention to greater damage".
Barclays response
A Barclays spokesperson 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.
"We have a three-part strategy to turn that ambition into action: achieving net zero operations, reducing our financed emissions, and financing the transition.
"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."
Remember when XR protest stopped traffic in London?
XR at Marble Arch
Extinction Rebellion blocked Marble Arch junction with a limousine.