Climate campers kick off day of action against RBS

Camp for Climate Action activists chained and glued themselves to RBS premises, climbed office roofs to unfurled slogan banners and spilt "oil" on the streets.

The group has accused the 84 per cent state-owned bank of using taxpayers' money to prop up companies which it says are destroying the planet.

Organisers said that at one point on Monday seven activists superglued themselves to the RBS executive car park at the Gyle Shopping Centre.

Another group of seven activists climbed Forth Energy's building to highlight the company's plans to build four "environmentally destructive" biomass power stations around Scotland.

Two protesters scaled the roof and hung banners reading "Biomass health hazard" and "Biomass = climate change."

Three managed to slip inside and two chained themselves to the front of the building.

Activists also created an "oil slick" using molasses outside Cairn Energy's offices in central Edinburgh in protest at the company's use of public money from RBS to drill for oil off the coast of Greenland.

They carried 60 litres of the liquid in a giant RBS "piggy bank" and poured the content onto the entrance and the street.

Lothian and Borders Police condemned the action, saying that the oily substance had covered two of Edinburgh's main arterial roads.

Climate Camp activist Lizzie Jacobs hailed Monday's events as a "very successful day of action against RBS to highlight how it is funding the destruction of the planet at the expense of people and the future."

Activists will tomorrow begin to disassemble the Climate Camp, which was set up by hundreds of campaigners outside the bank's Gogarburn headquarters last Thursday to coincide with the RBS-sponsored Edinburgh festival.

RBS said it did not agree with the activists' reasons for targeting its headquarters.

A spokesman insisted: "In recent years RBS has been one of the most active banks in the world in providing funding for renewable energy projects."

Lothian and Borders Police confirmed they had arrested eight people in connection with yesterday's protest activity in the Scottish capital.

Five people were held at the Port of Leith and three in Nicolson Street.