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The true story behind Channel 4’s ‘Secret State’ – RBS’s dirty deals
Sometimes Platform is really late off the mark, but luckily a friend in Liverpool gave us a nudge. Thanks Lena. WARNING – this blog post contains spoilers. Channel 4’s recent 4-part political thriller ‘Secret State’ has an oil and finance storyline, elements of which uncannily mirror some of Platform’s current and recent campaigns. The plot…
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Contradictory docs for Cairo refinery reveal disdain for transparency by European Bank officials in first major IFI-financed project since revolution started
A $3.7 billion PPP oil refinery expansion in Cairo is accompanied by contradictory project documents, making a mockery of claims by the public banks involved to be committed to “good governance” or democracy. Despite being presented as merely translations of one document, the Arabic and English “versions” are entirely different – with the Arabic markedly…
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The Oil Road – Journeys from the Caspian Sea to the City of London
The new Paperback edition has a brand new Afterword… “★★★★★…The Oil Road opens the lid on the often-shady energy economy, weaving absorbing travel reportage into powerful investigative journalism…. If you want to know why oil matters, read this book.” – Time Out (book of the week) “An elegantly written travel book…will make you think the next…
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RBS outed for pro-tar sands lobbying
Despite vehemently protesting our calculations of £2.5 billion in Canadian tar sands finance 2008-2010, the Royal Bank of Scotland is today reported by Reuters to be closely involved in the pro-Canadian tar sands lobby in Europe.
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Oil projects too far – banks & investors refuse finance for Arctic oil
West LB have decided not to finance oil & gas development projects in the arctic and F & C have dropped Arctic oil explorers Cairn from their ethical portfolio. The German corporate finance & investment bank, West LB, launched a new environmental policy in February and its guidelines are important in relation to the push…
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Care about the climate? Move Your Money out of RBS/Natwest
Pinch and a punch, first day of the Move Your Money month! All over the country, people are cutting up their cash cards from the main big banks and shifting their cash to ethical banks, credit unions and building societies, as part of Move Your Money’s sustained campaign to get people to stop providing banks…
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Getting to Market: Emerging Investor Risks in the Tar Sands
The global oil price wavers around $100 a barrel as traders are split over whether Brent Crude is about to plummet due to the Eurozone disaster getting worse, or about the spike due to a renewed Middle East crisis. It is snowing in Fort McKay, in Nothern Alberta, and the temperature of -6 feels like…
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A Bank for the Future: Maximising public investment in a low-carbon economy
The recent financial crisis cost the UK £129 billion in annual GDP and increased the structural deficit by £93 billion. The initial budget cuts announced by the coalition government demonstrate the pain this is causing to public services. The UK can’t afford another meltdown, yet short term, high risk, carbon intensive investments are still business…
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Should RBS get credit for going green?
CLIMATE change protesters are threatening direct action protests against the Royal Bank of Scotland over dealings with the oil industry. They say the bank invests more in the fossil fuel industry than any other in the UK and claim this is damaging the planet. The Government-owned bank, however, prides itself on its environmental record. The…
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Cashing in on Tar Sands: RBS, UK banks and Canada’s “blood oil”
Tar sands extraction in Canada is devastating Indigenous communities, wildlife and vast areas of boreal forests, as well as being many times more carbon-intensive to produce than ‘conventional’ oil. The higher oil prices in recent years have meant that it’s become a more attractive prospect for oil companies to expand their operations in the costly…
