This weekend, Royal Bank of Scotland is facing its biggest protests in a long history of protests. Environmental groups and hundreds of climate protesters are camped on the lawn at RBS’s Gogarburn headquarters, on the outskirts of Edinburgh.

At the centre of the protest is a growing anger at the bank’s role in funding the world’s dirty oil and gas industries, at huge environmental cost. A report revealed today by the Sunday Herald shows that RBS has provided nearly £13 billion worth of funding to the oil and gas industries since it was bailed out by the taxpayer two years ago.

The report is the first authoritative and detailed account of the bank’s controversial financing of the companies blamed for causing global warming. Among the 66 companies backed by RBS are well-known names such as BP, Shell, ConocoPhilips, Tullow Oil, Trafigura and Cairn Energy. The bank has helped them raise many hundreds of millions of pounds to finance oil exploration, extraction and development around the world.

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RBS has also helped Trafigura raise £210m. Last month, the London-based oil trader was fined the equivalent of £840,000 by a court in the Netherlands for illegally exporting tonnes of toxic waste which allegedly made 30,000 people ill on the Ivory Coast in West Africa.

…more at Herald Scotland

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3. businessbankaccounts

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