OPERATIONAL NOTICE: Rally and photocall

Protesters to call for the Bank of England to put its money where its mouth is and support a green COVID recovery

WHEN: Activists will assemble from 08:30 am on 6 August 2020

WHERE: Outside the Bank of England entrance facing the Royal Exchange building between Threadneedle Street and Cornhill Street

WHAT: Activists will be reminding Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey of his pledges to build a greener economy, as Britain’s central bank prepares to release its latest Monetary Policy and Financial Stability Reports on Thursday 6 August.

Campaigners will be wearing Andrew Bailey masks and holding speech bubbles featuring the governor’s previous statements on climate and the opportunity for a green recovery. A large banner will also read ‘NO ECONOMIC STABILITY IN A CLIMATE EMERGENCY’ 

WHY: The Bank of England is currently supporting fossil fuel companies such as Shell and BP through its corporate quantitative easing (QE) programme, as well as airlines, oil and gas companies and other polluters through its new Covid Corporate Financing Facility (CCFF).

On becoming Bank of England governor in March, Andrew Bailey said that decarbonising the Bank’s asset purchases was “perfectly sensible” and pledged to take it forward as “a priority”. However, in April the Bank of England published an updated list of assets it will be buying with an additional £10bn of corporate QE, that still included climate criminals such as Shell, BP and Total.

A recent Positive Money report also revealed that the majority of beneficiaries of the Bank’s new CCFF scheme have been high-carbon corporations, with airlines and oil and gas companies receiving billions of pounds of public financial support, prompting calls for environmental and social conditions to be attached to these bailouts.

Andrew Bailey has responded to public pressure on climate to say that the Bank will turn to these issues “when the pressure on our resources abates”. Activists will remind Bailey that climate change is an existential threat to economic and financial stability which action cannot be delayed on. They will hold him to his previous words on the opportunity for a green recovery.