£2 billion campaign success! – Let’s keep the pressure

Dear Friend, £2 billion campaign success! – Let’s keep the pressure on the Treasury and RBS Alistair Darling’s announcement of a £2 billion Green Investment Bank is a huge step forward in the government recognising that to achieve global climate justice the UK needs to invest urgently in renewable energy, and ditch dirty power that’s causing climate change that’s hitting the poorest people in the world the hardest. But the path to success is not an even or easy one; we still need to convince the Chancellor that although the Green Investment Bank is a good idea there is a huge stumbling block on the path to success: the Royal Bank of Scotland. The Treasury’s £2 billion for green investment is completely dwarfed by the billions of pounds from the taxpayers’ purse that RBS is pouring into oil, coal and gas companies and companies that are heavily engaged in tar sands operations in Canada. WDM is calling for the government to tell RBS to use our money for socially useful projects that are ethically and environmentally sound, not to back companies like Opti Canada, who are poisoning indigenous communities with the exploitation of super-dirty tar sands. And that means that any plans for a Green Investment Bank need to include RBS, which since the bail out has reduced its lending to renewable energy companies and been involved in $7.5 billion in finance to tar sands related companies; otherwise it’s just throwing good money after bad. Before the election, WDM is pushing this issue on several different fronts that you can get involved in: If you haven’t already told the Chancellor what you think, take this action now Channel 4 news is holding a Chancellors’ Debate – why don’t you ask the future Chancellor whether they will continue to allow RBS to spend public money on companies that fuel human rights violations and climate catastrophe – or whether they will clean up the banks? WDM will be making noise at the RBS Annual General Meeting in Edinburgh in late April and across the country – why don’t you join your local group to add your voice to the call to stop RBS investing our money in blood oil For WDM the announcement of a Green Investment Bank signalled a success for our Clean Up the Banks campaign that you have played an important role in. As ever, thanks for all you do to win justice for the world’s poor. Kind Regards Kate Blagojevic Media Officer