Extinction Rebellion hold mock trial of Barclays in Sheffield for 'environmental crimes'

Passers-by in the city centre were asked to put the British firm ‘on trial’ and switch banks this afternoon by an activist dressed as a judge.

It comes as part of a critical ongoing campaign by the controversial group against the firm.

Barclays has reportedly invested $145bn in coal, gas and oil since the climate change-led Paris Agreement treaty in 2015, which Extinction Rebellion says makes it the “number one” bank to do so.

The staged trial on Pinstone Street saw a judge ask passers-by to be the jury as he found the bank “guilty of environmental crimes”.

His ‘chief witness’ was another activist dressed as planet earth.

A South Yorkshire Police mobile CCTV van watched from the foot of nearby Balm Green road.

Organiser Anthony Teasdale said: “We’re calling on Barclays to immediately stop investing in fossil fuels companies.

“Recent reports have made it abundantly clear that we cannot mess around anymore and we need change now.

“It is the biggest bank in Europe in investing in fossil fuels. They are ‘greenwashing’ in saying they are making change but they are not.”

It comes after a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) last month published a report claiming global warming had become a “code red for humanity”. It warned the planet had been hotter in the past 10 years than it had been in 125,000 years.

A Barclays spokesperson responded to the protest today to say it was “aligning its entire financing portfolio” to support green initiatives. It claimed the bank would reduce the emissions of its power portfolio by a third by 2025 and that it would be a ‘net zero’ carbon emissions bank by 2050.