Climate campaigners took to the street of Huddersfield on Valentines’ Day with bubbles, power ballads and a giant red heart to call for an end to what they say is the UK’s collective love affair with fossil fuels.
The group toured the town with a huge broken heart, stopping off at branches of Lloyds, Barclays, RBS and at Kirklees council offices to urge them to break up with the fossil fuel industry
The event, part of Global Divestment Day which saw 450 events in 60 countries, aimed to raise awareness of the role the industry plays in air pollution and climate change.
The protesters say air pollution related to the fossil fuel industry is responsible for 196 deaths in Kirklees each year.
Chayley Collis, one of the organisers of the event, said: “Scientists are telling us that 80% of known fossil fuel reserves need to stay in the ground to prevent catastrophic temperature rises. The business plan of the fossil fuel industry is clearly incompatible with a liveable planet. For the sake of humanity’s survival, we cannot afford to invest in them any longer.”
The news comes as Huddersfield Quakers took the decision to divest from companies with links to the coal, oil and gas industries at a meeting this month at the Friends Meeting House in Paddock. A move they are encouraging other churches and faith groups to follow.
They hold around £35,000 in its financial reserves and the decision means that all investments and bank holdings are to be reviewed with immediate effect to remove any fossil fuel investments.
In 2011 Quakers in Britain committed to become a sustainable low-carbon community and also ‘to seek to create an economy in which our testimonies can flourish’. In 2013 Quakers in Britain made the decision to divest nationally-held funds from fossil fuel investment.
Global Divestment Day was organised by the global Fossil Free campaign to which over 180 universities, faith groups, pension funds and philanthropies worldwide have already committed to divest.
