Many or most of us make choices based on ethical concerns every day – whether it’s avoiding brands linked to sweat shops or opting for fairtrade coffee; but we don’t always apply this principle to where we bank and therefore what our money is used for.

A new campaign is launching today: Move Your Money argues that we should acknowledge the impact of our decisions and recognise our own power in changing the banking sector for the better by pledging to move our money away from HSBC, Barclays, RBS, Santander and Lloyds to ethical alternatives.

These banks patently have not learnt from the behaviour that led to the worst recession in living memory. Casino capitalism continues, as do excessive bonuses, while lending to small businesses continues to fall. They have few qualms about making unethical investments in dictators, weapons manufacturers and environmental exploitation across the globe.

Banks continue to fund environmentally destructive projects, feigning ignorance about their role in supporting pollution, soil degradation, climate change, extinctions, and disruption of indigenous peoples’ livelihoods.

Environmental consequences seem irrelevant in the pursuit of profit. Banks often make empty gestures, attempting to ‘greenwash’, but Barclays, RBS and HSBC have recently been named and shamed by the Ecologist for involvement in some of the world’s most environmentally damaging projects, including mega coal fire power stations and open-pit gold mining. In part for their involvement in funding the coal industry, Barclays, RBS, and HSBC all grace the list of top 20 ‘Climate Killer’ banks .

And why would they change their behaviour when they have the implicit ‘too big to fail’ guarantee of our government evidenced by the ￡500bn UK taxpayers have given over to the banks in the form of bailout and guarantee schemes? Why would they change when the vast majority of people unhappy with their banks still haven’t left?

While our money continues to sit in these banks, we’re providing a cheap source of credit and tacit assent to continue down their destructive path.

Remove your consent to these practices and choose an alternative so you can be confident your money isn’t working for something you would never condone.

There are alternatives who care about people and the planet: credit unions, ethical banks and building societies so learn more about the choice you have and pledge to Move Your Money today.

The answer is Ulster Bank’s sponsorship of the Belfast Festival at Queen’s; or as it’s now called, the ‘Ulster Bank Belfast Festival at Queen’s.’  The 49^th annual festival begins this week.

It came from humble origins; started by an undergraduate student in 1962, the festival blossomed and continued through the days of political upheaval to the present day. From Jimi Hendrix to the Moscow State Ballet, it can boast an impressive, star-studded history through very dark times to brighter days.

A few years ago, due to under-funding by both the University and the Department for Culture, Arts & Leisure, sponsorship was sought and met by Ulster Bank, in a 3-year deal starting in 2008.

Ulster Bank is part of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Group – a bank now 84% taxpayer-owned since it was bailed out by the UK government three years ago. The public now own the largest share of one of the biggest banks in the UK. The government is ultimately responsible for making sure that public money – that is to say, our money – is not being used in ways that would violate human rights or used to further unethical actions.

However, since 2008, RBS has awarded its failing executives, some of whom were credited with helping to create the financial crisis, with huge rewards from our money.

It has been identified as the world’s principal creditor to the arms industry, having participated in deals totalling an eye-watering £44.6 billion in the last 10 years, including deals involving producers of depleted uranium ammunition and cluster bombs.

It was recently forced to back down on a controversial loan it was prepared to make to the government of Belarus as its President, Alexander Lukashenko, cracked down on pro-democracy protestors.

And perhaps worst of all, RBS provides billions in loans to finance the extraction of the ‘tar sands’ of Alberta – a super-polluting form of oil extraction which involves using huge amounts of energy to remove the topsoil (and anything on it; trees, habitats, everything) to get at the oil underneath, destroying everything as this image shows. The First Nation communities in Alberta have documented serious impacts on their health – from very rare cancers to immune system-related illnesses, to a decline in local animal populations and water quality – not to mention over 17,000 violations of their indigenous rights guaranteed by centuries-old treaties.

As a report by a coalition of NGOs demonstrates, if the tar sands project can be proven to be viable in Alberta, this could see it rolled out to other parts of the world as oil addict economies become increasingly desperate and willing to do anything for a fix. If this type of oil extraction becomes acceptable, the world faces an even more grave challenge in dealing with the climate crisis.

Despite UK taxpayers now owning one of the biggest banks in the world, we continue to have little say in how it could create a better world for us and our children; or how it could easily become a force for good by financing clean technology.

And this is what links Ulster Bank and Queen’s University Belfast to the financiers of global suffering. The festival, it’s hard-working staff and its guests and performers are a force for good. The sponsor isn’t.

Is this really the kind of brand that a University that has just adopted the slogan ‘We Are Exceptional’ wants to be associated with? Exceptionally unethical? Exceptionally dirty?

Some may think that connection is absurd, but it’s very clearly a straight line. I’m so tired of people looking at investment in a vacuum. Part of the reason why unethical investment is permitted to exist is because people juxtapose the funding source and the end result. Sure, it’s near-impossible to live a 100% ethical live in a western consumerist democracy, but that’s no reason to do what many people do and just decide not to care about the ethics of anything. Some people are determined to ignore the cruel origins and decisions that furnish our lives with (often frivolous) first-world luxury. More active, more responsible, and more compassionate consumers could go a long way to changing this.

The EU have recently indicated they may clamp down on imports of tar sands oil. Now’s the time for RBS, other high street banks and their owners to put the long-term interests of taxpayers first and invest its considerable funds in low-carbon technology and disinvest in harmful industry. And now’s the time for Queen’s University to look into a different, less oil-drenched sponsor if RBS won’t do that.

In the meantime, what’s a decent response? Withdraw your money and put it into a bank that thinks before it invests your money in something unscrupulous. And tell your bank why you’re leaving. I did.

Taxpayer owned RBS has been identified as one of the main financial institutions – both in the UK and worldwide – continuing to invest billions of dollars in companies producing cluster munitions, despite these weapons being banned under international law, according to a new report released last week.

The report by Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) members IKV Pax Christi and
Netwerk Vlaanderen shows that worldwide, 166 private and public financial
institutions from 15 countries continue to invest in companies that produce cluster munitions. Since the Convention on Cluster Munitions was adopted in May 2008, the global amount invested in companies that still produce cluster munitions totals US $39 billion.

The human and economic cost of cluster munitions is well-documented. The weapons cause widespread harm on impact and unexploded submunitions pose a threat to civilians for decades to come. Over the last 40 years, cluster munitions have killed and injured thousands of civilians and continue to do so today.

In the UK, 12 financial institutions are listed in the report’s global ‘Hall of Shame’. RBS is number four in the list, making it the only EU-based financial institution remaining in the top five investors in cluster munition producers worldwide.

Following the recent financial crisis, the bank is 83% state-owned after being bailed out by UK taxpayers. Despite this, the report identifies that RBS was part of a banking syndicate providing a loan to US cluster bomb producer Alliant Techsystems in October 2010 for an amount of US $80 million.

It is unacceptable for any financial institutions in the UK to still be financing,
either directly or indirectly, a weapon that has been officially banned under UK and international law, especially in the case of banks financed by public money. CMC campaigners are urging the UK government to take strong action and make clear to all UK banks and financial institutions, including those mentioned in the report, that they must respect the UK’s obligations under the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Handicap International, as part f the CMC, believes that financial investment in the production of cluster munitions is a form of assistance, and is calling on all States to ban all investment in the production and trade of cluster munitions.

According to the IKV Pax Christi and Netwerk Vlaanderen report ‘Worldwide
Investments in Cluster Munitions: A Shared Responsibility’:
• 166 financial institutions from 15 countries are investing in cluster munition producers.
• The majority of these financial institutions (128) are from five countries that have not yet joined the Convention: China, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, and the United States, plus Taiwan.

• However, 38 financial institutions are from countries that have joined the
Convention on Cluster Munitions and are continuing to invest in cluster munition producers. These nine countries are: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Some countries, including Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg and New Zealand, have taken the lead in banning investment in these illegal weapons by passing national legislation. The UK government previously stated in 2009 its intention to work with

the financial sector, NGOs and other interested parties to promote a voluntary code of conduct to prevent indirect financing of cluster munitions. However, to date no action has been taken.

Many leading banks have changed their policies to reflect the growing
international rejection of cluster munitions. Worldwide, CMC members are
calling on other countries to follow this example by passing national laws
banning investments, and calling on financial institutions to disinvest from
these weapons.

The report ‘Worldwide Investments in Cluster Munitions: A Shared
Responsibility’ by IKV Pax Christi and Netwerk Vlaanderen is available at: www.ikvpaxchristi.nl/stopexplosiveinvestments

And once more this movement that launched only half a year ago flexed its muscle. From Plymouth to Aberdeen, people organised their own actions. More than 40 groups across the country turned out, and demanded that the government kills off the floundering Health and Social Care Bill, and focus instead on reforming the institutions who caused the crisis – the banks.

And all across the country, the public responded with support. In Oxford, where I was, customers shoppers gathered round the open windows of the closed HSBC to listen to our chants and to show their approval. When we moved on to Barclays, customers applauded. Outside Santander, passers by cheered. As tweets flooded in from across the country throughout the day, one thing was clear: huge numbers of people are on our side. Protesters from North, South, East and West found warmth and love from the people of their cities. Back in Oxford, one of the police officers told us how vital our protest was, how much he supported our cause.

And people are not just on our side in a passive ‘hurry on by’ way. They were gleeful, delighted to see that the fightback continues. I spent the morning asking people to sign a pledge to refuse to vote for any party that sells off the NHS. The response was overwhelming. People were passionate and angry, articulate about the gutting of an institution they know and love.

And this public anger was reflected in the people who joined the protest. UK Uncut has always been diverse. But this strength in breadth is growing. We were joined by disabled activists who see their services being lost. We were joined by an FE teacher who has lost his job because of cuts, and a youth worker who will soon. A network that was sparked by students and recent graduates has grown to a movement which includes all those hit by the assault on the institutions of civilisation.

And that is exciting.

Or will it? Becuase unfortunately, the warm sheen of satisfaction that people will deservedly feel has been somewhat undermined by the organisers. For some reason, they thought it would be a good idea to allow some of Britain’s biggest polluters to be the sponsors of the week. In my day job at People & Planet, we’ve launched a poll so you can vote on which sponsor you think has secured the biggest PR coup by being allowed to cover up their crimes with a bit of community greenery. So, let’s have a quick look at who a few of the sponsors are:

1) RBS:

The Royal Bank of Scotland have worked hard for this award. Not long ago the world’s biggest company (by assets), they are famed for their profligacy and demands for taxpayer bailouts. But they are also major contributors to the climate crisis. Once upon a time, not so long ago, they called themselves ‘the oil and gas bank’. But once people pointed out that this might somewhat offend those who, erm, are suffering from the effects of climate change, they quickly changed their tune. No longer are they proud to be Europe’s biggest financiers of fossil fuel extraction. Now, they are much more socially aware than that! No longer are they proud to prop up those delivering more emssions than the whole of the UK (pdf), now, they have leanrt to cover up what they do. So instead of broadcasting their massive carbon emissions, the fact that they are one of the world’s biggest drivers of climate change – instead of publicising these facts, they work hard to deny them. And thank God that climate week was there to help them do that. Remember, you own RBS, so a vote for them in this poll, is a vote for yourself!

2) Tesco

Oh Tesco! The world’s second most profitable retainler – Tesco! What could make you more proud to be for our historic island? Oh, wait a sec, Tesco may be a proudly British company, but its stores are actually owned in, erm, the tax haven of The Caymen Islands. But, every time anyone makes a specific allegation, they sue the pants of them. And who can afford lawyers to stand up to the second most profitable retailer on earth? Not Bright Green. So we won’t say anything about that. Instead, let’s talk about the destruction of local shops – how Tesco forces them out of business, and, on average, costs the average High Street they move into more than 100 jobs. Or look at their massive open freezers, counterweighted by huge blast heaters – if you ever want to see how much of our climate one building can burn, go stand in a Tesco… But that’s all OK, coz Tesco are sponsors of climate week. So they must be the good guys, right?

3) EDF

If you like nuclear power, you will love Électricité de France – owned by the French Government, and the world’s biggest utility company. 75% of the power they generate around the world is nuclear. But don’t panic, climate week fans! For they are also (.xls) owners of more coal power station capacity than any other UK based company – owning as they do the Cottam and West Burton stations. These guys are real experts in covering their tracks though, and they were delighted that the nice folks at Climate Week were happy to help them knock us all off their sulpher/uranium filled stench.

Please do vote in the “Greenwash coup of the year” poll.

We own 84% of RBS. They’ll be announcing their profits this week, and UK Uncutters across the country will be sitting in branches to remind everyone who it is that caused this crisis – and who is paying for it. But I thought I’d do a quick guide to some stuff you might not have known about RBS.

1) As of January 2009, the RBS group were (by assets) the biggest company on earth.

2) According to a report by CAS Business School expert Nick Silver, RBS is responsible for financing projects and companies delivering 3% of globl carbon emissions – more than the entire UK.

3) According to a 2008 report by War on Want, RBS were the main bankers to 4 major arms companies, including BaE systems.

4) The RBS group owns a bunch of companies, including:
NatWest
Ulster Bank
Direct Line
Citizens Financial Group
Coutts & Co.
Adam and Company
Child & Co.
RBS Securities
Churchill Insurance

5) RBS subsidiary Citizens Financial Group – itself the 8th largest bank in the USA, and is under investigation for its role in the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

6) RBS Subsidiary Coutts & Co; are private bankers to the mega-rich, who specialise in helping them dodge tax – as their website says::

“Our tax team works closely with your private banker to understand your particular situation so that you receive bespoke advice tailored to your circumstances.

Whether you are an entrepreneur selling your business, an executive with complex share schemes, a non-UK domiciled individual living in the UK or simply looking to structure your affairs more tax efficiently, the tax team can assist”.

Yes, that’s right, a bank that’s 84% owned by the government is specialising in helping the mega-rich avoid paying taxes to the government.

Other subsidiaries – Adam and Company and Child and Co – are also solely for ‘high net worth individuals’. Adam and Company also offer tax advice, while Child & Co seem to be so exclusive, that I can’t find their website!

7) In 2009 (after the bail-out) RBS provided tens of millions in finance for Irish Company Tullow Oil to explore for oil from an island on lake Albert, whose ownership is claimed by both Uganda and the DR Congo – a region that has seen millions die in a resource fuelled war in recent years. When oil was discovered, troops were mobilised on both sides and the media and human rights observers were not allowed access. Tullow’s partners, Heritage Oil, then (according to the UN) armed these troops with speed boats and land-rovers. Despite widespread outcry from human rights groups, publicly owned RBS co-ordinated another round of financing of nearly £1 billion for this project in 2010.

8. RBS are one of the main targets of the campaign against depleted uranium, because of their significant role in financing the stuff.

9) According to Amnesty International: “The Royal Bank of Scotland, together with other well known high street financial institutions such as Barclays and HSBC, are providing investment to the tune of around £800 million to the producers of cluster bombs”

10) Last year’s RBS Bonus pot was £1.3 Billion.

Yes, that’s right. This is the bank that the government owns 84% of – that we won 84% of.

“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting”. Bright Green readers were recently reminded of Milan Kundera’s famous quote. And how apt.

Because more than anything else, this government is hoping that we forget. They are praying that we don’t remember what caused the economic collapse. They want us to believe that the public sector is to blame – that our welfare state became bloated. They hope that we buy the lie that we’ve lost our jobs because our nurses cured too many sick people, our libraries had too many books, we cared too much for older people, and invested too much in the young.

They want us to forget words like ‘credit crunch’, ‘sub-prime mortgage’ ‘AIG’, ‘RBS’, ‘bail-out’, and ‘Fred the Shred’. They hope that our anger at bankers’ bonuses was a flash in the pan. They think we’ve moved on.

But the truth is that we remember. It is not much more than two years ago that RBS was first bailed out. We haven’t forgotten that our economy collapsed because the bankers who paid for the Conservative Party’s election campaign had built our wealth on a house of credit cards. Rather than allow wages to rise, they persuaded us to borrow, and borrow, and borrow, and then cashed in the cheques on our interest payments. Rather than investing our wealth in the real economy – building a better, more prosperous future – they bet it on the money markets. Instead of solar towers, they built towers of derivatives. Instead of investing in new knowledge, they invented new financial products. They were gambling with the global economy – with other people’s jobs, livelihoods, and lives. They wore sharp suits and used long words to hide the fact that they were earning massive bonuses in jobs most of them didn’t understand.

Or maybe they did. Because when the financial wizards’ magic turned out to be little more than a sleight of hand, when this house of credit cards finally collapsed, they didn’t need to pull a rabbit out of a hat. They just went cap in hand to the government, and demanded a bail-out. And, now that the real economy has been destroyed in their wake, these conjurers have not been asked to chip in. The con trick continues – we are being asked to pay the crooks.

And while some just didn’t understand the rules of the game, others knew only too well what they were doing. At Goldman Sachs, leading banker Fabrice Tourre made it clear in 2007 that he got: “The whole building is about to collapse any time now. Only predicted survivor, The Fabulous Fab (yes, that’s what he calls himself), standing in the middle of all these complex, highly leveraged, exotic trades he created”. And Mr Osborne is hoping that we didn’t notice that those who caused this crisis have seen their wealth soar in the last year – they have crashed our economy and made a killing from the salvage.

Yes, Mr Osborne, we remember. It was not the teachers and the doctors and the nurses who caused this economic crisis. It was your good friends, the people who paid for your election campaign. The bankers. You may have cut corporation tax, and handed our national economy back to them – for now – but we remember only too well that it was they who caused this mess in the first place.

But we remember further back too. Because in the past, the bankers wouldn’t have been allowed to get away with this. We used to regulate our financial sector. We had rules to keep everyone safe. But then came Mrs Thatcher, Mr Reagan, Mr Clinton, Mr Blair – they dismantled the protections that wise men had put in place after the last great depression. And, all the time, they were cheered on by Mr Osborne and his friends. Because for the last 30 years, Britain has been built on the myth that if you give money to the rich, it will trickle down. And for 30 years, ordinary people’s wages have stagnated, while the mega-rich have plundered the wealth our work creates, and now scuttled the ship.

We were told that Britain would become a nation of financiers – we would hand all to the bankers, and they would make us rich. Others tried that path too: Ireland, Iceland, Dubai – a roll-call of the damned. This idea was foolish from the outset, and now must surely be consigned to the dustbin of history. For this idea hasn’t just delivered one economic crisis. The global economy has lurched from collapse to collapse. From 1945 to 1970, unemployment in the UK was never above 500,000. Since we set the banks free in the 70′s it has never been lower than 500,000. Even by its own measure – GDP growth – this model has failed. Both in the UK, and around the world, economic growth has slowed rapidly since ‘trickle down economics’ became the flavour of the month. Surprise surprise – an economic system based on expecting the majority to thrive on the scraps from the table of the richest doesn’t work.

But this system did deliver something. Because while most haven’t got any wealthier, the mega-rich have seen higher and higher bonuses. Inequality in Britain is at a level we’ve not seen since Queen Victoria was on the throne. This inequality is not just morally abhorrent. It is ripping Britain apart.

And yet Mr Osborne and Mr Cameron are trying to re-inflate the banking bubble. They are pumping money from our public services to fund corporation tax cuts, and they are selling the bailed out banks back to the city as though nothing had happened. They are allowing the grotesque bonus bonanza to continue.

But we haven’t forgotten that this crooked system that Mr Osborne is trying to re-build – exactly as it was before – this crooked system was designed by the mega-rich, for the mega-rich. And we haven’t forgotten that it doesn’t need to be this way.

And as long as we remember who it was that caused this crisis, as long as we don’t forget who built the house of cards in the first place, we won’t let Mr Osborne forget either. The banks thought they had got away with daylight robbery. But they will be held to account, today, and tomorrow. Because the winners write history, and we are not willing to lose. Because man’s struggle against power is a struggle of memory against forgetting, and we will make sure that everyone remembers.

The first of these may come as a surprise. PriceWaterhouseCooper wrote a report in 2009 saying the Government should re-privitise RBS over the course of seven years or so. But the government is so ideologically opposed to having any kind of democratic control over finance that it is willing to risk the economy in order to send this bank off into the fray long ahead of this timeline. More to the point, the question should not just be “when will we privitise RBS”? but “What should we do with RBS”. This is a massive question: when they were bailed out, RBS were, by assets, the biggest company on earth. The problems with RBS go from surface to core of the problems with our whole global economic system. There is no magic bullet answer.

However, this is where the second story – about the Green Investment Bank – comes in. This story may not be a surprise, but it should be shocking. About a year ago, my fellow Bright Green editor Gary Dunion and I, in our then day jobs, went with one of Alasdair Darling’s constituents to a surgery meeting she’d arranged to discuss green finance. He was very insistent: the Green Investment Bank was the government’s climate finance strategy. Its ability to lever in extra money was the thing that made it worthwhile, in his opinion. I don’t think the bank he promised is anything like enough. But it was a step in the right direction, and it was what we had been promised. And now it seems that the Treasury are insisting on removing the powers that it would need to be even vaguely worthwhile.

So, why am I writing about these together? Well, part of the problem with setting a Green Investment Bank is logistical: it is a lot of work to set up a whole new bank. Much easier to hive off another part of a bank you already own, especially if, like RBS, this bank already has a world leading team of experts in energy finance. Additionally, RBS is responsible for financing (with our money) projects and companies delivering around 3% of global carbon emissions – much, much more than will be saved by the Green Investment Bank. Turning its energy team into a low carbon energy team is a double win. You stop the emissions they are helping to produce, and a back a low carbon revolution. Sure, they’d need re-training. But if we are setting up a Green Investment Bank, someone is going to need that training, and people financing oil projects are probably about as good a team as you are going to get.

This isn’t my idea. Lots of experts have been telling the Government that they should be splitting the relevent sections from the rest of RBS, and turning them into a state owned Green Investment Bank.

Since our banks were set free, they have driven us over the brink. The credit crunch was a disaster caused by our banking system. Food speculation delivering soaring costs. And it is banks who are arranging and financing fossil fuel extraction projects that will ensure run-away climate change if they aren’t stopped. How we reform this system before it destroys us will be a global question. But the UK can and must play our part. And the fact that we own 84% of one of the biggest banks on earth means that we have a massive leaver to pull. If the government sells off RBS next year, it will be showing that it has learnt nothing at all from the credit crunch, and is willing to do little or nothing about climate change. It will be confessing that it has no new ideas for how we can run our economy. And so it will be condemning us to further future recessions and to increasing climate chaos. That’s quite a legacy.

Scotland is a country deeply associated with standing up for the underdog and challenging injustice. This is reflected in steps to become a Fairtrade nation, to build closer links with Malawi, to invest in renewable energy and to cut C02 by 42 percent by 2020. When I lived in Edinburgh, I worked alongside Scots to make these projects a reality.

Yet all of this ongoing work stands to be undone by a bank that carries Scotland’s name in its title – the Royal Bank of Scotland.

The Royal Bank of Scotland finances Tar Sands extraction – the most destructive fossil fuels project in the world. Alberta, Canada, may seem far from Scotland’s shores, but it is there that RBS money is enabling forests to be razed, rivers to be polluted and local communities to be suppressed. The refining process is at least 3 times as energy intensive as that for conventional oil. And all this at a time when the planet stands at the brink of climate catastrophe, in need of a great transition that will necessarily mean leaving the oil in the ground. Environmental damage won’t only affect Canada. Nor will it only affect people in poor countries – 300, 000 of whom already die each year due to climate change. It will affect all of us.

What is more, the Royal Bank of Scotland is doing this with money that belongs to us, UK tax payers. After the bailout, the public owns 84 percent of RBS. It is time that we had a say in how they spend our money.

Sadly the government does not agree. When a consortium of NGOs including the World Development Movement, Platform, and People and Planet took the Treasury to court last year, a High Court Judge blocked judicial review, effectively saying that the  Treasury can legally ignore climate change and human rights in RBS’ investments.

© Amelia Gregory 2010

It was because of these considerations that just over a week ago, I, and two friends, super-glued ourselves to the door of a Royal Bank of Scotland branch, so that we could speak to every customer coming in and out of the bank about what their money, and our money, was being spent on. Pinned to my front was a sign reading ‘You would be horrified if you knew where RBS invests your money’.  The action was part of a day of action called by the Climate Camp, situated opposite RBS’ global headquarters at Gogarburn.

The responses were varied. Some people were supportive for environmental reasons, some were angry at RBS because of their role in the financial crisis, some joked about this being like a Fringe performance or a variation on the Dashing White Sergeant. Others simply wanted to use the bank. Our tone was always polite and friendly. After some time the bank decided to close, presumably not wishing their customers to be fully informed of the bank’s destructive practices. Sometime later we were arrested for breach of the peace – a charge that includes causing alarm. If customers were indeed alarmed at the Royal Bank of Scotland’s use of their money then it is the bank that should stand trial rather than those of us attempting to inform the world of their practices.

30 hours later, once released from police custody and reading through the newspapers, it was me who was alarmed. Police PR officers, politicians and leader writers appeared to have rounded on the camp.

Particular focus in media reports was given to a police press release alleging that activists spilt ‘an oil like substance on a main road’, even though, as the Climate Camp media team pointed out, ‘there were no pictures of the spill; no traffic reports showing disruption; no bystanders or drivers complaining; no banner and no word from any climate activist on any website saying they did it’. A complaint has been lodged with the PCC. Unfortunately this nevertheless became the tar with which the entire camp was brushed.

Protesters were being accused of being mindless, irresponsible vandals rather than the deep thinking people seeking to prevent the havoc of climate change I know them to be. The charge of irresponsibility particularly grated. Isn’t the willingness to risk one’s liberty to protect the planet, the very definition of a responsible citizen?

Many of those who camped opposite the Gogarburn headquarters of the RBS were Scots. Many were not. Every UK citizen has a stake in the Royal Bank of Scotland. We are all being hurt by the cuts born of the economic crisis. And we all stand to be affected by climate change. That means it is up to all of us to stand up to RBS, when its practices go against the very values for which Scotland is admired.

Tim Gee is part of the Climate Camp

To those wondering why so many people are angry with this bank, the answer is pretty simple: when it comes to climate change, RBS make it happen – and they do it with taxpayers’ bail-out money. RBS is Europe’s biggest financer of the fossil fuel extraction driving climate change. According to a report last year by banking expert Nick Silver, the bank is financing projects and companies which deliver 3% of carbon emissions worldwide: more than the whole UK economy.

And RBS also seems to specialise in facilitating and financing the most destructive projects. Since they were bailed out, they have used €2.3bn of our money to prop-up companies operating in Canada’s tar sands. This mega-project in Alberta – the largest in human history – is up-rooting an area of crucial carbon-sink forest the size of England and Wales. It’s poisoning the land and water and so killing the indigenous people who live there. It’s doing this to extract vast quantities of oil mixed with sand and mud – a substance so dirty, and so plentiful, that NASA scientists tell us that, unless we stop extracting these tar sands, we can’t stop runaway climate change.

RBS is also behind disastrous oil projects inflaming war in central Africa. When they lent around $100 million of our money to Tullow Oil earlier this year, they were financing a project drilling for oil right on the border between the DRC and Uganda. The resource war between these countries has killed roughly 5 million in the last 15 years. That’s nearly 1 in every thousand people on earth. When Tullow moved in with their partners Heritage Oil, they decided to arm both sides in the conflict as they mobilized around the area where oil was discovered. Which helped.

Most recently, they were the funders behind Cairn Energy’s deep drilling project in pristine Arctic waters. Cairn’s Chief Exec recently welcomed climate change. He said that the melting ice will give access to more oil. Nice.

And since they were bailed-out, they’ve been doing all of this with our money. At a time when the Government claims it can no longer afford to finance the much needed switch to a low carbon economy, it is allowing RBS to throw billions of our money down the fossil fuel drain – which can only lead to long term losses, if the world is weaned off fossil fuels, or to catastophic climate if it isn’t.

RBS is a failed bank. Their insanity with sub-prime mortages kick-started the credit crunch. They are 84% owned by the taxpayer because we had to bail them out with billions. We must stop mis-using this money, or my generation will pay a much bigger price.