OXFAM has change into the most recent charity to stop banking with Barclays, owing to the bank’s continued links to the fossil-fuel industry, after protests were held by a gaggle of Christian climate campaigners.
Other organisations, including Christian Aid, Greenbelt, and Sheffield Cathedral have also severed ties with Barclays (News, 28 July 2023), which has been the most important investor in fossil fuels in Europe since 2016.
Last Friday, members of the campaigning group Christian Climate Action (CCA) held a prayer walk across the Oxfam headquarters in Oxford. In December, the group had written to the charity, urging it to alter its banking arrangements.
One of its members, Holly-Anna Petersen, said: “When people give their money to a charity, they accomplish that because they need it to be spent bringing good to the world. But if a charity banks with Barclays, that donation is funnelled into Europe’s dirtiest bank. Oxfam is just one in every of an entire host of organisations which might be on the brink of jump the Barclays ship, since it doesn’t look good being caught in bed with an organization that’s actively funding the destruction of our youngsters’s future.”
On Tuesday, 4 days after the vigil, Oxfam announced that it was within the technique of changing banks. A spokesperson said: “We wrote to Barclays in December to present notice of our intention to withdraw any funds currently held by them and that we’ll stop using them for foreign exchange with immediate effect. This is something we have now been considering for a while as a result of their record on climate change.
“Through our work with communities world wide, we see first hand the injustice of the climate crisis which is destroying homes, livelihoods, and lives on an unprecedented scale. We decided that the extent of Barclays’ continued financing of fossil fuels was such that, where possible, we must always move our business elsewhere.”
A spokesperson for Barclays said: “Barclays has reduced its financed emissions of the energy sector by 32 per cent since 2020, which exceeds our 2025 goal. We are committed to financing the energy transition, investing within the climate technologies required to construct low-carbon capability as we support those clients investing to realize net zero.”
Last Friday, CCA also held a prayer vigil outside the offices of the Baptist missionary organisation BMS World Mission, in Didcot, Oxfordshire. Several BMS World Mission staff joined the vigil.
The Revd James Grote, a Baptist minister for greater than 40 years, who has worked overseas with BMS World Mission, said: “The climate emergency demands that all of us examine and alter how we use our resources and live more justly. We all have to do it, including organisations that we love and cherish, and that’s why I used to be outside the offices of BMS World Mission asking them to modify from banking with Barclays. It’s one other small step towards cutting fossil-fuel emissions that are destroying the lifetime of the planet that God has given us to like and to cherish.”
A spokesman for BMS World Vision said that it now holds fewer than five per cent of its monies with the bank, and will probably be reviewing current arrangements this 12 months. “As a Christian charity with a deep concern for God’s creation and the way we steward its care, BMS World Mission shares the spirit of prayer and challenge that marks out Christian Climate Action and all who attended Friday’s vigil. Their courage and singleness of purpose has much to show Christians in our calling to withstand dominant powers. We are reviewing all our banking relationships in 2024, and it has been a privilege to hope alongside CCA for the longer term of those relationships and of God’s creation.”
About one third of Church of England dioceses bank with Barclays, and CCA has now begun a campaign to encourage a switch.
The issue of climate change may also feature in the approaching Parliamentary by-election in Rochdale: a retired priest, the Revd Mark Coleman, 64, is standing as an independent candidate. He was Rector and Area Dean of Rochdale until his early retirement, due to Parkinson’s disease, in 2020. A supporter of the climate-campaign organisation Just Stop Oil, he has been imprisoned twice for taking non-violent motion with the group.
He said: “When I used to be in prison, I had an excellent sense of God protecting me, surrounding me with love. . . The wealthy and powerful, and the governments which collude with them, are usually not keeping the people protected. The opposite is true. They worship these dangerous technologies of oil and military power. These don’t bring peace for atypical people. But there may be all the time excellent news. Together we are able to come together and revitalise democracy.”
Backing his campaign are the joint environment officers for Rochdale, which is a Labour constituency, Jane Touil and Pat Sanchez. They have criticised the party’s policy to not reverse North Sea oil and gas licences.
Ms Sanchez said: “Mark is honest. He won’t pretend we are able to wait for the novel changes we want to guard future generations. The situation will only change with urgent motion at national level. I do know my support for Mark means leaving the Labour Party, which makes me sad, but not as sad as seeing Labour let huge climate-destroying oil and gas projects go ahead.”
Joe Ware is Senior Climate Journalist at Christian Aid
