Climate camp targets RBS in Edinburgh
Four-day climate camp to be held at same time as Edinburgh fringe festival and will protest over bank's links to oil industry
* Tim Webb
* The Guardian, Tuesday 1 June 2010
This summer's Edinburgh fringe festival could be hijacked by climate change protesters after they decided to hold their annual camp in the city at the same time.
The four-day Climate Camp will target Royal Bank of Scotland, whose headquarters are on the edge of Edinburgh, because of its links to the oil industry and in particular tar sands. RBS is also sponsoring the fringe festival.
Action against the bank is planned for Monday 23 August. Organisers said the precise location of the camp would be kept secret until hours beforehand when activists receive texts and tweets instructing them to descend on the site. Last year about 1,000 protesters attended the camp at Blackheath, in London, and organisers expect a similar turnout this year.
According to organisers, RBS – in which the government has an 83% stake – invests more money in the fossil fuel industry than any other bank in the UK. A recent report published by Friends of the Earth, Platform and other green groups claimed RBS had provided loans of $7.5bn (£4.9bn) in the last three years to companies involved in tar sands in North America. Producing oil in this way produces carbon emissions three times larger than conventional production.
Tracy Chalmers, a Climate Camp activist, said: "The Camp for Climate Action is coming to Edinburgh because that's where the RBS headquarters are. RBS has poured billions of pounds of public money into fossil fuel projects around the world that trash the climate and totally disregard human rights. This is a climate crime that needs to be stopped, like we stopped Heathrow and like we stopped Kingsnorth."
Last year a force of about 1,800 officers adopted a low-key approach to policing the event. At 2008's Climate Camp at Kingsnorth, the proposed site for the UK's first new coal plant for decades, authorities claimed that 70 police officers were injured in clashes with protesters. The Guardian obtained police records which showed that their medical unit had dealt mostly with toothache, diarrhoea, cut fingers and "possible bee stings".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/01/climate-camp-rbs-edinb...
