<\/p>\n
Protestors outside the NatWest AGM (pic: DB Media Services)<\/p>\n
Climate activists today forced NatWest chairman Rick Haythornthwaite to adjourn the bank\u2019s AGM by staging a demonstration over the banks\u2019s decision to soften its policies on fossil fuel investments.<\/p>\n
A few minutes into the chairman\u2019s address to shareholders, nine protestors bearing t-shirts with the slogan \u201cNo More Oil\u201d stood and began singing.<\/p>\n
Despite repeated appeals for them to sit and ask questions later, the demonstration continued.<\/p>\n
One man said: \u201cWe are asking for the board to move back to its position of no funding fossil fuel companies.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said they wanted a commitment from the board at today\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n
Mr Haythornthwaite replied: \u201cThat is not going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
The protestors were issued out of the conference room at NatWest HQ at Gogarburn. Despite the chairman forbidding photography, one filmed the demonstration.<\/p>\n
NatWest, parent of Royal Bank of Scotland, disclosed in February that it had loosened some of the restrictions it had imposed on financing of clients\u2019 fossil fuel activities. <\/p>\n
This includes lifting a ban on working with oil and gas majors that do not have climate transition plans aligned with the 2015 Paris agreement to limit global warming.<\/p>\n
The bank said at the time that its changes were a response to the \u201cevolving policy environment\u201d, but investor campaign group Share Action has warned that \u201cthis kind of backtracking has real consequences\u201d.<\/p>\n
Rick Haythornthwaite: we take climate change seriously (pic: DB Media Services)<\/p>\n
During questions, Mr Haythornthwaite offered to meet representatives of Share Action. He offered a \u201cpersonal response\u201d on the energy transition by saying all his properties were electric,.<\/p>\n
\u201cI take climate change very, very seriously, as do all of the board,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have to wrestle with how we balance supporting our clients with transition and managing a complex policy environment.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the board was committed to meeting its targets. \u201cThose commitments have not gone away. We have gone further by raising funding to customers on transition commitments.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that the \u201coverwhelming balance of our investments remain on renewables and de-carbonisation\u201d and that just 0.6% is related to oil and gas.<\/p>\n
\t #Climate #activists #force #NatWest #chair #halt #AGM #Daily #Business<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Protestors outside the NatWest AGM (pic: DB Media Services) Climate activists today forced NatWest chairman…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[9258,7408,272,3116,462,10262,306,3195,9291,10081,10232],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4995"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4995\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}