How 7 women helped make Barclays cut fossil fuel financing by 45%

Zoe Cohen, a Barclays shareholder, was 1 of 7 women who broke windows at Barclays HQ in London on April 7th, 2021. This was an Extinction Rebellion action.

Zoe did it out of love. Why love? Because Barclays was ($30.3 billion in 2020)and is the biggest fossil fuel funder in Europe. And fossil fuels cause the death of loved ones throughout the world. To continue their death and destruction fossil fuels need money. Zoe and her colleagues wanted to put an end to that.?

In an emergency you break the glass to raise a fire alarm. So that is what these 7 women did: Zoe, Rosemary Webster, Cazzie Wood, Gabby Ditton, Lucy Porter, Sophie Cowen and Nicola Stickells.

Nigel Higgins, chair of Barclays, could have had the courage to work with the 7 women to put out the fire that his bank was fuelling. Instead, 7 fire-alarm-raisers were tried by the UK for breaking windows, rather than Nigel Higgins being tried for his bank’s role in fuelling fossil fuels.?

Zoe would have to find another way to raise the alarm to put out the fire. So, she did.?

At the Barclays May 2022 shareholder meeting (AGM) she glued herself to her chair so that Nigel had to listen to the alarm she was raising. But she was unglued by security. So, she asked that Nigel and Barclays board meet with Sir David King, former climate advisor to the UK government, to be briefed on why ‘net zero 2050’ is too little too late.

Zoe made sure this meeting happened, and went back to the May 2023 AGM to ask, “what actions the Board were taking”? They had, Nigel replied, “spent several hours with Sir David” on the need for “near-term” action. His response to the fire Barclays was feeding, he went on to say, was “more restrictive policies” i.e. “add fuel more slowly” and “joined up action” with government, energy companies, financiers and asset owners i.e. “wait and see” what other pyromaniacs, firewood providers and firemen attending other fires would do about the fire Barclays was responsible for.?

Nigel did not reply to Zoe’s last question at the AGM: “You are still funding new coal, oil and gas, aren’t you? And you’re still funding massive deforestation, plastics pollution, habitat destruction?” Nigel cut Zoe off instead and said, “there is no time for another question”.

As Chairman since 2019 Nigel is paid over $1m in shares and cash to oversee decisions that destroy our climate, millions of human beings’ lives and the nature we are part of. “The buck stops with Nigel”.

Zoe worked for 15 years in the NHS, is a mother and a coach. She has a love of justice, which she owes to her parents and grandparents, one of whom worked with the French resistance in the Second World War. Defending our climate, humans and nature is what she does.?

From 2020 to 2022 Barclays cut fossil fuels funding by 45.3% from $30.3 billion to $16.6 billion*. Why did Nigel never say that? Was he ashamed of what he and the UK courts put 7 women through?

Banking on Climate Chaos 2023 - Banking on Climate Chaos