Breaking: Extinction Rebellion activists smash windows at HSBC in Canary Wharf

Extinction Rebellion shattered over a dozen windows at HSBC’s headquarters in Canary Wharf because the group phases a local weather change protest towards the financial institution’s funding insurance policies.

Activists from the Extinction Rebellion group used hammers to interrupt windows and pasted stickers on partitions and windows earlier than sitting down to attend for the police to reach, in keeping with a number of media experiences this morning, together with Reuters.

“Despite HSBC’s pledge to shrink its carbon footprint to internet zero by 2050, their present local weather plan nonetheless permits the financial institution to finance coal energy, and supplies no foundation to show away shoppers or cancel contracts based mostly on hyperlinks to the fossil gasoline business,” Extinction Rebellion stated.

When contacted by City A.M., nobody at HSBC was out there to remark.

Read extra: Investors to push HSBC to tug out of fossil gasoline investments

Canary Wharf this morning (Source: ER)

Barclays two weeks in the past

The newest motion follows two weeks after XR protestors broke windows at the London headquarters of Barclays in Canary Wharf.

The activists from the Extinction Rebellion group carried placards with slogans corresponding to “Better Broken Windows than Broken Promises” and pasted the message “In Case of Climate Emergency Break Glass” on the entrance of the financial institution’s constructing.

Read extra: Barclays condemns local weather activists’ protest following smashed windows in Canary Wharf

“Extinction Rebellion are entitled to their view on capitalism and local weather change, however we might ask that in expressing that view they cease wanting behaviour which includes legal harm to our amenities and places individuals’s security at danger,” a Barclays spokesperson instructed City A.M. at the time.

“We have made a dedication to align our whole financing portfolio to the targets of the Paris Agreement, with particular targets and clear reporting, on the best way to reaching our ambition to be a internet zero financial institution by 2050, and assist speed up the transition to a low-carbon financial system.”

Read extra: Barclays faces contemporary shareholder showdown over fossil fuels forward of COP26

COP26 later this yr

Scrutiny on UK monetary establishments is rising forward of the United Nations COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow later this yr. 

Barclays stays Europe’s largest financier of fossil fuels and the seventh largest in the world, financing simply over $118bn to the coal, oil and fuel sectors in the 4 years for the reason that Paris Agreement.

Read extra: Public-private partnership should be at the guts of tackling local weather change forward of COP26

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