Will Barclays invest in destroying the Great Barrier Reef?

HSBC, Deutsche Bank, RBS… now Barclays? Today, thousands of 38 Degrees members joined hundreds of thousands of other people from Australia to Germany fighting to protect Australia’s priceless Great Barrier Reef from the Abbot Point development – where Adani, a mega coal company, want to build the world’s biggest coal port. They’re planning to dredge thousands of tonnes of soil and dump it on the reef. And they’re looking to British banks to stump up the cash.

And all of this despite the fact that the Barrier Reef is a pristine world heritage site, and UNESCO have just used some of their strongest language ever to slap Australia on the wrist for industrial development along the reef coastline. They’ve even suggested they might list the Barrier Reef as ‘endangered’. And the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority saying the coal port “has the potential to cause long-term irreversible harm to areas of the Great Barrier Reef.” Still – Adani seem pretty determined. The Australian and Queensland governments seem pretty unconcerned, so now it’s down to ordinary people around the world.

People powered campaigns over the last month have pushed HSBC, Deutsche Bank and now RBS into saying they won’t have anything to do with the Abbot Point coal port. But Barclays, one of the biggest UK banks, is also one of the biggest international investors in Australian coal – and they might well be lining up to pour money into this project. So 38 Degrees members have launched a Twitter bid to persuade them to back down.

Barclays’ press team got thousands and thousands of tweets over the course of the day, linking to an official letter demanding they don’t line up any investment in Abbot Point. The deadline for an official response is next Wednesday 25th June. So now, we wait. In the meantime, if you’d like to join other 38 Degrees members in ramping up the pressure, please click here!

Check out some of the tweets below: