Climate activist expresses appreciation of Greta Thunberg support amid Lloyd's of London protests

Climate activists gathered outside ten Lloyd’s of London insurers’ offices earlier today (October 18) demanding they rule out backing two major fossil fuel projects.

The demonstrations, which began at Standard Bank, were organised to call on Lloyd's to refuse insuring the West Cumbria coal mine in England and the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP).

Today’s protesters were doing so in solidarity with Fossil Free London’s “Oily Money Out” mass action, at which Greta Thunberg was arrested yesterday, and Extinction Rebellion Gauteng in South Africa.

Activists in Johannesburg have claimed they were met with “brutality” by security at Standard Bank during a recent protest against the financing of new coal projects.

Christian Climate Action were seen displaying a banner reading “your greed is killing our humanity” at the London sit-in today.

Melanie, who is part of Christian Climate Action, said: “We want to send a message that financing these projects is financing climate destruction."

She claimed EACOP should not go ahead due to the environmental impact of burning fossil fuels, as well as the effect on the areas through which the pipeline will run.

“We are destroying the planet by burning fossil fuels, and this will generate more fossil fuel emissions than some small countries do.

“It is going to cause such environmental damage to the land through which it goes and destroy livelihoods there,” she said.

Christian Climate Action ran a pop-up exhibition entitled Burning Earth at the Energy Intelligence Forum (EIF) in London yesterday (October 17) where Greta Thunberg was arrested.

Melanie expressed appreciation for the support of fellow activists such as Ms Thunberg, but also frustration at the lack of media coverage for the climate crisis itself.

She told LondonWorld: “Delegates may have seen our protest there, we hope it reached their hearts and their minds.

"But the newspapers don’t report it, whereas the fact that Greta got arrested was reported all over the news.”

“It’s like ‘let’s not trouble people to think about the climate crisis’, even though it’s the most burning issue that faces humanity at the moment,” she added.

Christian Climate Action plans to remain outside the building until 5pm today. 

Joanna Warrington, campaigner with Fossil Free London, said: “London’s banks and finance sector have been ignoring all the warning signs while pouring billions into fossil fuel expansion.

“Their profit is our loss. Financing new fossil fuel developments is incompatible with a safe future.”

Lloyd’s of London declined to comment on the protest.

City of London Police confirmed that no arrests have been made.

The EACOP is a 1,443km project which will transport oil produced from fields in Uganda to the port of Tanga in Tanzania. It will then be sold to world markets.

The West Cumbria coal mine, which was granted approval by the government in December 2021, will be used to extract coking coal for steel making. It will be the first deep coal mine in the UK for more than 30 years.