EXTINCTION Rebellion is demanding the end to investments in fossil fuels.

Members of XR Aberteifi recently held a protest outside Barclays in Carmarthen where members, based in Carmarthen, Cardigan and Pembrokeshire, 'washed the bank down' with water which was described as being done to, "symbolically clean the bank of its black record in terms of the large amounts of money it puts into supporting the fossil fuel industry."

While the bank was being washed, other members engaged the public in ‘crisis talks’, inviting them to have their say, to express their fears about the climate crisis, and to discuss what can be done.

On the protest, a spokesperson for the group said: "The bank invested £104 billion between 2016 and 2020, despite the international Paris Agreement in 2015 to limit global warming, which is mainly driven by emissions from burning fossil fuels.

"The world has warmed by 1.2 degrees since 1850 and we are already seeing dangerous consequences - with flooding here in Wales and wildfires and other extreme weather events across the globe."

The action in Carmarthen was part of the ‘Impossible Rebellion’, where Extinction Rebellion campaigners across the UK are demanding an immediate stop to all new fossil fuel funding.

Jane Mansfield, a retired district nurse and grandparent from Pentrecagal, who joined a XR protest in London recently, said “I have no option but to protest as the future depends on it, and it feels better trying to do something rather than sitting at home worrying about the careless way our government (and others) treat the future.”

António Guterres, the UN secretary general, recently warned about a 'code red' for humanity, and that evidence is irrefutable that greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are putting billions of people at immediate risk.

Philippa Gibson from Pontgarreg, who recently left her job teaching Welsh to adults in Cardigan in order to have more time to campaign for the climate, said: “We can see the evidence of climate change around us, in the more frequent and more intense flooding in the Teifi Valley, as well as on our television screens showing more distant places suffering extreme weather.

"In chatting with people in Carmarthen, it was clear that more and more of us are becoming deeply concerned as we see climate catastrophe approaching so fast”

Sarah Wright, who served for many years as a Cardigan Town councillor and is now a member of Cardigan XR, said: “We need Barclays and other banks to stop investing in fossil fuels, and we need our governments to act far faster to bring about the changes we need to reduce our carbon emissions.

"A global agreement to deal with the hole in the Ozone layer in the late 1980s was successful, and this shows what can be achieved when world leaders act decisively.

"We need that kind of action now - not just words and promises. Ordinary people need to let their politicians know that this is an issue we care about.”