Hundreds of climate activists are to target the headquarters of banking giant Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) in the annual Climate Camp this month, including a day of "mass action" against its offices and branches.
The campaign group said on Thursday it had chosen RBS because of its commitment to financing the fossil fuel industry in Britain and around the world, including loans to coal, oil and gas companies and the Canadian tar sands.
The Climate Camp protesters will set up the camp by "swooping" on a site in or near Edinburgh from August 19, followed by mass action on August 23 against RBS branches, offices and projects funded by the bank.
The activists said previous camps had successfully targeted the now-axed third runway at Heathrow and Kingsnorth power station in Kent.
Ruth Brown, a community worker from London, said: "Destructive projects like opencast coalmines in the UK are only made possible through finance from banks like RBS.
"The government bailed them out, and now they use their profits to destroy our communities and are causing catastrophic climate change.
"We face a double disregard to human well-being. With RBS having been bailed out with £45.5 billion of public money, not only do we face decades of unjust public-sector cuts, but this diverted cash is also being used to further trash our climate and communities.
"Communities on the front line around the world - from Scotland to Nigeria, from Kent to Canada - are saying no to this exploitative and dangerous destruction of our planet and our future, and the Camp for Climate Action is joining them."
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