Displaying items by tag: Barclays

On 11 August Christian Climate Action (CCA) held a prayer vigil outside the headquarters of the Catholic development agency CAFOD. They prayed for and with the charity to consider their banking arrangements. The core plea of the prayers was for CAFOD to close their bank account with Barclays, the biggest funder of fossil fuels in Europe. They held up signs such as ‘Praying for CAFOD to stop banking with Barclays, who fund climate chaos’ and ‘Barclays, the ecocide bank’. Some members of CAFOD came out and joined the vigil and other CAFOD volunteers stopped to talk. This followed a similar vigil outside Christian Aid recently, which led to that charity closing its Barclays account. There will be a series of vigils in the coming months at charities which bank with Barclays, including World Vision, BMS World Mission, Tearfund, and Leprosy Mission. CCA also spread their message at the Greenbelt Festival.

Pressure group ShareAction has called on Barclays Bank to ‘phase out’ financing energy companies that are not aligned with the Paris climate accord. Barclays is close to securing qualified investor support for a new action plan on climate change, as they move away from relationships with carbon-polluting companies. In May their shareholders will have the chance to vote on the proposal at their annual general meeting. City sources said that Barclays' alternative resolution would commit it to helping ‘transition’ energy companies towards the Paris goals. One investor briefed on the plan described it as a ‘landmark’ for a major lender. We can pray that other banks will commit to measures that will cause polluting companies to achieve Paris compliance across lending measures, underwriting, corporate finance and all forms of project financing.