NEWS RELEASE – Ministers urged to block RBS dirty investment

Ahead of a reception for RBS at Holyrood tonight, the Scottish Green MSPs have lodged a motion (1) urging UK Ministers to end the publicly-owned banks’ support for polluting activities like the exploitation of tar sands. (2) RBS has lent almost £3.6bn to support these projects since being bought by the UK taxpayer in 2008, and has facilitated a further £9.3bn in equity finance. (3) Extraction from tar sands is intensely polluting, disruptive to local environments, and has serious impacts on native communities in Canada and elsewhere. (4) Activists from the World Development Movement will be outside Parliament tonight to provide briefing material for guests attending this event.

Patrick Harvie MSP said:

“It’s bad enough for privately owned banks to be supporting this kind of socially and environmentally destructive investment, but it’s unforgiveable from banks we own. Three years ago the taxpayer saved RBS from collapse. That would have been a good point for the company to have stopped treating the environment as an inconvenient obstacle to the extraction of the dirtiest fuels ever burnt. UK Ministers, like their Scottish counterparts, are very proud of their legally binding carbon emission targets. So why are they letting a state-owned enterprise undermine these same targets?

“RBS show no sign of wanting to clean up their act voluntarily, and are increasingly becoming a by-word for corporate social irresponsibility. The British public are the majority shareholders, so it’s time we, through the UK Ministers who are supposed to represent our collective interests, started to exert some control. This sort of unqualified pursuit of short-term profit is what got the Bank into a hole in the first place, after all.”

Notes

1. The motion in Patrick Harvie’s name reads as follows.
That the Parliament congratulates the World Development Movement, Friends of the Earth Scotland, and other campaigning organisations for their work exposing the role of the Royal Bank of Scotland in financing the fossil fuel industry; notes in particular the Bank’s involvement with companies extracting tar sands in Madagascar and Canada; considers these tar sand developments to be socially destructive and environmentally reckless; notes that since the public sector bail-out of the Bank it has provided finance of nearly £3.6 billion to fossil fuel companies and has helped raise equity finance worth an additional £9.3 billion; considers this to be a disgraceful record for any bank, but all the more so for a bank which is largely owned by the public; calls upon the UK Government to require publicly owned financial institutions to reorient their lending and investment to support economic activity which is compatible with the public interest and with objectives set in UK and Scottish law, most notably the urgent need to reduce of CO2 emissions; and in particular calls on the UK Government to ensure that no further support of any kind is given by any of the publicly owned banking institutions for the extraction of tar sands.

2. For more information on RBS’s involvement in funding tar sands projects, and for WDM’s campaign against it, see:
http://scot.gr/jy

3. This information was compiled from Bloomberg data:
http://scot.gr/jz

4. FoE Scotland have information about the social and environmental damage caused by tar sands projects here:
http://www.foe-scotland.org.uk/tarsands

President of homophobic university to address Holyrood

The address for today’s “Time For Reflection” at the Scottish Parliament will be given by Cecil Samuelson, President of Brigham Young University, which is owned and operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as the Mormons. (1) The University’s ‘Honor Code’ states that “Homosexual behavior is inappropriate and violates the Honor Code. Homosexual behavior includes not only sexual relations between members of the same sex, but all forms of physical intimacy that give expression to homosexual feelings.” (2)

Patrick Harvie MSP said:

“Mr Samuelson should never have been invited to address the Scottish Parliament, given he leads an institutionally homophobic academic institution. Contrary to the position he holds, there is nothing dishonourable about loving another man or another woman, and the idea that a university might expel students for feeling otherwise is utterly outdated and absurd. Parliament is an institution for the whole of Scotland, and this platform must never again be given to someone with this kind of attitude to Scotland’s gays and lesbians.

“Just this month, Brian Souter received a knighthood despite being the prime mover behind the equally homophobic ‘Keep The Clause’ campaign a decade ago. An overt racist would be given neither kind of honour – in fact the merest hint of racism or sectarian behaviour is regularly enough for someone to lose their job. What is unique about this particular prejudice that means so many in authority fail to take it seriously? It’s time for Scotland to grow up, and to stand up to all forms of bigotry and prejudice alike.”

Notes

1. For a brief biography, see:
http://unicomm.byu.edu/president/bio.aspx

2. For the full text, see:
http://saas.byu.edu/catalog/2010-2011ucat/GeneralInfo/HonorCode.php

NEWS RELEASE – Parliament urged to follow Italy’s lead on nuclear

Patrick Harvie MSP today welcomed the overwhelming rejection of nuclear power by Italian voters yesterday, (1) following The decision last month by the German government to close their older nuclear reactors. The Greens believe Scotland can move to 100% renewable electricity generation by 2020, if not before, and today urged MSPs from other parties to back calls to close this country’s two remaining nuclear power stations by 2020 at the latest. (2)

Patrick Harvie MSP said:

“The Italian people were offered a direct choice on nuclear power this week, and they voted overwhelmingly for an end to this outdated technology. Like the German government, they know the future isn’t nuclear, it’s renewable. A much more substantial commitment to wind, wave and tidal power is essential if Scotland is to have access to safe affordable energy for the long term.

“The nuclear age is nearly over, like the oil age, and by 2020 every last watt of substantial power generation in Scotland should be coming from renewables. The SNP talked a lot about green energy during the election, and if they’re serious about going 100% renewable they must start preparing right now for the closedown of Torness and Hunterston. Future generations of Scots expect nothing less – it’s time to stop piling up the nuclear debts and the nuclear waste.”

Notes

1. See: http://uk.reuters.com/

2. The motion in Patrick Harvie’s name reads as follows:
S4M-00297 – Europe Abandoning Nuclear Power. That the Parliament welcomes what it considers the overwhelming vote against nuclear power in the recent Italian referendum; further notes the German Government’s decision to close pre-1980 nuclear power stations and to call a halt to plans to extend the operational lifespan of the country’s nuclear plants; believes that, following the Fukushima disaster, the operating life of Scotland’s aging nuclear plants should also not be extended; supports calls for Scotland’s electricity supply to go 100% renewable by 2020, and urges Scottish ministers to work with the industry to close down Scotland’s nuclear power stations by 2020 at the latest.