Climate protestors are calling on Ceredigion County Council to “cease banking with Barclays as a matter of urgency”.

A protest was held in Aberystwyth, on Saturday, 4 December, urging Ceredigion County Council to stop banking with Barclays, which is the worst bank Europe for funding the companies fuelling climate change according to Greenpeace. They also promoted awareness of ethical banking.

The protesting scrubbers cleaned Barclays and suited citizens circulated a petition, calling on the council to “get our council taxes out of Barclays”.

Protestor Susanna Kenyon, of the Climate and Ecological Emergency Bill Alliance, said: “Business in coal, gas and oil carries on as usual despite the warning from the International Energy Agency last Spring that extraction must stop immediately, if nature and the developing world is to have any future.

“Ethical banks, such as Triodos, Ecology, and Charity Bank, all have good ethiscores, and only hold investments on behalf of their clients in environmentally sustainable projects.

“Barclays has financed more in fossil fuels projects across the world than any of the UK’s largest banks in the last year, a little ahead of HSBC and Standard Chartered. It is also the bank for HMRC and our county council.”

Greenpeace said Barclays is the “worst bank in Europe” for funding fossil fuels, and is just behind US banks.

A spokesperson for Ceredigion Council said the bank have provided them with “excellent service”, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic: “Barclays has operated local government sector specialism for over 15 years, currently providing transactional banking services to just under 25% of all local authorities and holding treasury relationships with close to 70% in the UK. The number of providers of banking services to the local government sector is very limited.

“We acknowledge concerns in relation to the bank’s record on climate change, but it should be noted that Barclays was the only bank that expressed an interest in the Council’s business last time the contract was procured.

“There is high confidence in the measures Barclays has in place to counter fraud, a critical consideration in present times.”

A Barclays spokesperson said: “We are aligning our entire financing portfolio to support the goals of the Paris Agreement - significantly scaling up green financing, directly investing in new green technologies and helping clients in key sectors change their business models to reduce their climate change impact.

“By 2025, we will reduce the emissions intensity of our power portfolio by 30%, and reduce absolute emissions of our energy portfolio by 15%. Increasing at pace, Barclays has already facilitated £46bn of green finance. We are one of the only banks globally investing our own capital – £175m – into innovative, green start-ups. By deploying finance in this way, we are accelerating the transition to a low-carbon economy and will become a net zero bank by 2050.”