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RBS AGM: Protestors to target top coal bank

Climate and energy

Protestors will target RBS at its AGM in Edinburgh on Wednesday, demanding that the bank pull its money out of coal.

Protestors dressed as bankers will hand out lumps of coal disguised as luxury chocolates – fossil rochers – while others will hold placards reading ‘RBS out of coal’.

RBS invests more in coal mining worldwide than any other UK bank, providing the industry with more than £4 billion since 2005. It ranks eighth of all banks globally for its financing of coal.

‘Who should I cheer for?’ site compares World Cup countries

General

A website launched today aims to help football fans decide which team to cheer for in the Brazil 2014 World Cup, based on countries’ impact on climate change, military spending, and efforts to tackle poverty and inequality.

UK-wide protests planned ahead of July trade negotiations

Trade justice

Protests will be held across the UK on 12 July against the EU-US trade deal, trade unions and campaign groups announced today. The protests will take place ahead of the next round of talks on the deal, scheduled to begin in Brussels on 14 July.

Protests will be held across the UK on 12 July against the EU-US trade deal, trade unions and campaign groups announced today. The protests will take place ahead of the next round of talks on the deal, scheduled to begin in Brussels on 14 July.

HSBC AGM: Protestors to tell HSBC to pull out of coal

Climate and energy

Protestors from the World Development Movement will tell HSBC to pull out of coal at its AGM on Friday 23 May, accusing the bank of fuelling climate change and ruining the lives of people living with the effects of coal mining worldwide.

Coal-gobbling ‘bankers’ will be strewn over an HSBC logo, joined by protestors holding placards reading, ‘HSBC out of coal’.

Date: Friday 23 May

Time: 10am

Place: Barbican Centre, Silk Street entrance, London EC2

Pan-EU coalition slams EU-US trade deal as a threat to democracy

Trade justice

On the eve of the EU elections, 120 campaign groups from across Europe have rejected the trade negotiations between the EU and the US as a threat to democracy, and have called on negotiators to radically rewrite the proposed agreement.

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is set to affect food safety, digital rights, social and labour standards and environmental protection. The campaign groups believe the deal is being negotiated in the interests of big corporations, at the expense of citizens and the environment. 

Keep dirty energy out of Green Climate Fund

Climate and energy

The UN’s new Green Climate Fund could be used to finance dirty energy including coal and shale gas. The Green Climate Fund’s board, which includes the UK government, meets from 18-21 May in Songdo, Korea, and is expected to agree details of what the fund will finance.

The Green Climate Fund was set up to help poor countries deal with climate change and develop using clean energy. But campaigners fear that unless this week’s meeting explicitly excludes fossil fuels, the fund will be used to subsidise the coal, oil and gas industries that are driving climate change. 

Protestors to target Lloyds AGM over coal investments

Climate and energy

Protestors will target the Lloyds Bank AGM in Edinburgh on Thursday 15 May, highlighting its financing of the coal mining companies fuelling climate change and destroying people's lives in Colombia and Indonesia. 

Protestors from the World Development Movement will hold placards reading ‘Lloyds: Stop Bankrolling Coal’ and will play on Lloyds’ marketing with a banner reading ‘Because Climate Change Matters’.

Campaigners call on Unilever to pull out of ‘damaging’ Africa food scheme

Food

Global justice campaigners have called on Unilever to pull out of an aid scheme they say will damage African countries’ ability to tackle poverty.

Unilever, which holds its AGM in London on Wednesday 14 May, is a leading member of the G8’s ‘New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition’. The scheme claims it will lift 50 million people in Africa out of poverty by 2022. But the World Development Movement believes the New Alliance will increase hunger and poverty by taking land and power away from millions of small-scale farmers.

Barclays AGM: Protestors to target Barclays for bankrolling coal

Climate and energy

Campaigners from the World Development Movement will protest at Barclays’ AGM on Thursday 24 April, accusing the bank of fuelling climate change and destroying people’s lives and the environment by financing the global coal industry.

£600 million UK aid money financing ‘corporate scramble for Africa’

Food

£600 million in UK aid money is going to a scheme to help big businesses increase their profits in Africa, a report by the World Development Movement reveals. The report slams the scheme as fuelling a ‘corporate scramble for Africa’.

Cameron’s arguments for EU-US trade deal ‘deeply flawed’

Trade justice

The economic case for the EU-US trade deal is ‘deeply flawed’, leading researchers on the deal have said as negotiations begin in Brussels today.

Prime Minister David Cameron has claimed that the deal, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) would bring £99 billion a year to the EU, giving an average family of four in the UK an extra £454 per year.

But researchers Dr Gabriel Siles-Brügge from the University of Manchester and Dr Ferdi De Ville from Ghent University in Belgium say the analysis on which the claims are based is misleading.

EU takes historic step to stop banks betting on hunger

Food

EU negotiators last night agreed to introduce regulation to prevent speculation by banks and hedge funds driving up food prices and exacerbating the global hunger crisis - but opposition by the UK government resulted in serious loopholes.

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