Campaigners from Huddersfield Friends of the Earth held a ‘red lines’ protest against fracking this Saturday 6 January outside Barclays’ Market Place branch in Huddersfield to highlight the bank’s continued role in funding fracking in North Yorkshire though its subsidiary Third Energy. The protesters wore red to symbolise the ‘red lines’ that the world must not cross in order to avoid dangerous climate change. Several of the campaigners also undertook a ‘die-in’ outside the bank to highlight the threat to human life posed by the extreme weather caused by climate change.

The campaigners are drawing on recent research [1] by Oil Change International which examines the remaining  ‘Global Carbon Budget’ that can be used to stay within safe climate targets. The research concludes that: “The oil coal and gas in reserves already in production and development globally is more than we can afford to burn. There is no room for any new coal, oil or gas exploration and production.”