Bristol: Grandparents for a Safe Earth tackle fossil fuels

Phil Kingston, 3rd left

Grandparents for a Safe Earth in Bristol have produced a video clip of their occupation of a Bristol RBS Bank last month to protest its funding of fossil fuels. Climate Change campaigner Phil Kingston, of the Holy Family Parish in Bristol, said: "Whilst concern for our descendents is our primary impetus, two other motivations call a number of us who are Christians to this action. One is the effect of climate change upon the poorest peoples of the Earth; the other is the on-going extinction of God's amazing and beautiful creation."

The background to the group's campaign is contained in two reports published by the World Bank and the International Energy Agency in 2012. The World Bank report, aptly called 'Turn Down the Heat; why a four degree C warmer world must be avoided' states that if the current trajectory of temperature increase continues, 'no nation will be immune from the impacts of climate change, however, the distribution of impacts is likely to be inherently unequal and tilted against many of the world's poorest regions'. The International Energy Agency report states that if all fossil fuel production infrastructure which is planned for 2017 is actually built, then CO2 emissions will be such that it will not be possible to keep the temperature increase within the 2 degrees centigrade, which world governments have agreed is the relatively safe threshold for human life.

"Our grandparents group has long experience of writing to government and corporations about these matters and we have mainly been met with bland responses" said Phil Kingston. "Because of this we have decided that when our requests for information and dialogue are not met, we will draw attention to this by taking nonviolent direct action".

The group's campaign against the funding of fossil fuel production is on the grounds that if the funding can be reduced, CO2 emissions will fall and the money can be spent instead on other forms of fuel production and energy efficiency. The Bristol offices of Royal Bank of Scotland were chosen because a 2011 report by Banktrack stated that it was the 7th largest investor in world-wide coal infrastructure.

The grandparents took with them to the occupation a letter to the person in charge and leaflets for staff, and intended to stay until answers to requests for information were received. Each activist made a commitment to nonviolent behaviour, whether physical or verbal. "Our letter made it clear that our intention is to seek dialogue with everyone" reported Phil Kingston. He added that "we were not given the answers we sought; instead the police were called and we were removed from the Bank's offices.

A 10-minute video of the action can be seen on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6V7mqePObM

The group returned to the RBS offices two weeks later to give leaflets to 130 staff there about our action and the video link to it.

In March 2013, Grandparents for a Safer Earth occupied Bristol Barclays to protest Barclays funding of fossil fuels. www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsp4ZvlC7BU