Activists protest Barclays’ refusal to stop funding oil pipelines

Greenpeace members have protested at Barclays Bank’s corporate headquarters in London, UK, against the bank’s investments in Canadian oil pipelines.

The organisation condemned the bank’s continuing support for pipelines that transfer oil from Canada’s tar sands to markets in the US and Asia, saying that the projects are harmful to the environment.

Barclays is funding three oil pipelines planned from Canada’s Alberta province to the Pacific Coast and the US.

As part of the protest, 40 Greenpeace volunteers assembled at the main entrance to the bank.

Some of the protesters scaled the entrance’s portico and recreated a tar sands oil leak dripping down from the bank’s logo.

Greenpeace UK oil campaigner Hannah Martin said: “Barclays have been ignoring the damage their dirty funding decisions are doing to the world, and to Indigenous communities in North America, so we’ve brought a little taste of what they’re trying to ignore right to their doorstep.

“Tar sands are a climate disaster. Tar sand produce more than twice the carbon of an average barrel of oil, and a tar sands oil spill is even worse than a normal crude oil spill – the oil sinks in water, making it almost impossible to clean up. We need to hold them to account for the damage they’re causing.”

The organisation launched a petition asking Barclays to stop financing the pipeline projects, which received 40,000 signatures.