BlackRock targeted by protesters
LONDON: Climate activists targeted BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, in London yesterday, demanding major financial institutions starve fossil fuel companies of the money they need to build new mines, wells and pipelines.
Extinction Rebellion, which uses civil disobedience to highlight the risks posed by climate change and the accelerating loss of plant and animal species, is midway through a new twoweek wave of actions in cities around the world.
Activists thronged the financial heart of London, unfurling banners, addressing passersby by megaphone or blocking streets around locations including BlackRock, the Bank of England, Bank of China and Barclays.
At BlackRock, volunteers glued themselves to the doors while others staged a mock dinner party with rolledup banknotes on their plates. Police said they arrested more than 90 people.
‘‘The City of London is a preeminent nexus of power in the global system that is killing our world,’’ Extinction Rebellion spokeswoman Carolina Rosa said.
BlackRock declined to comment.
Police later ordered a halt to all assembly linked to Extinction Rebellion in London. In Trafalgar Square, where demonstrators have pitched camp for the past week amid fountains at the base of Nelson’s Column, protesters began removing tents. Police made no immediate move to shut down another protest camp in the district of Vauxhall.
Extinction Rebellion said it had left Trafalgar Square but would continue actions in London and other cities around the world.