Environmental activism group Extinction Rebellion has been engaging in an ongoing protest in Manchester since last Friday, blocking the city’s busy Deansgate road. Eight protesters glued themselves to the ground outside the headquarters of Barclays Bank in protest of the bank’s investments in fossil fuel industries. The sit-in follows a series of similar protests that occurred in March, in which activists from groups like Momentum and People and Planet disrupted business at 40 UK Barclays branches.

A report from the Rainforest Action Network and the BankTrack group found that Barclays was the European banking firm with the largest investments in fracking and coal industries, with $85bn in current investments in the industries and $24bn in investments in expansion of these industries. Barclays has responded to the findings, pointing out a £27.3bn investment in environmental and social financing. An Extinction Rebellion spokesperson has said of Barclays: “Today we're calling on them to […] recognise that we are facing catastrophic ecological breakdown which these practices are contributing to.”

Barclays has not been the only business to experience disruption from the protests. Protesters have staged “die-ins” in which groups of people lay on the street in front of businesses like Primark and HSBC, blocking entry to the establishments in an effort to highlight the urgency of climate change and the role that industries like finance and fashion have to play.

No arrests have been made during these protests, contrasting the more than 1,000 arrests made in similar protests in London in April.

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