Ghent (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – Members of Extinction Rebellion staged their protest at the BNP Paribas Fortis office located in the Ghent city center on Saturday morning. The environmental group states that BNP Paribas Fortis maintains its investments in fossil fuels, deforestation, and the arms industry.
On Saturday morning, Extinction Rebellion activists conducted a protest outside of BNP Paribas Fortis’ Ghent office to pressure the bank to cease its support for fossil fuels, deforestation and arms investments. Approximately fifty demonstrators participated, with some dressed as “red rebels” while others conducted a die-in. The Ghent demonstration ran smoothly since the previous Antwerp and Bruges protests resulted in the arrests of three people.
Extinction Rebellion claims that BNP Paribas extended $12 billion in fossil fuel financing during 2023, with Arctic Region projects among the financing targets. The group asserts that BNP Paribas possesses substantial investments in major fossil fuel operators TotalEnergies, ExxonMobil, and Chevron in a way that undermines the Paris Agreement‘s target of climate protection.
The activists claim that BNP Paribas stands alone as the European banking institution funding Elbit Systems, while the company provides weapons to Israeli military operations that affect Palestinian areas. They assert that such financial support contributes to policies they describe as genocidal under what they term the “apartheid state of Israel.”
What is the background of extinction rebellion’s protests against BNP Paribas?
The environmental group Extinction Rebellion, established in 2018, has continuously aimed its protests at major financial institutions because of their funding decisions towards fossil fuels. The Banking on Climate Chaos report from 2023 positions BNP Paribas as one of the leading European banks that funded fossil fuel projects with $20.8 billion between 2016 and 2022. The bank aims to cut financing for oil and gas but provides financial support to TotalEnergies, which operates Arctic drilling projects and East African pipelines.
The investment corporation BNP Paribas receives criticism because it maintains financial relationships with Elbit Systems, which provides defense technology to Israel. During 2018–2023 Elbit received more than $500 million worth of credit that the Dutch monitoring organisation Profundo documented from BNP Paribas. Between October 2023 and the present, the intense Israel-Palestine conflict resulted in more than 34,000 Palestinian deaths, as reported by the Gaza Health Ministry, and thus brought severe criticism to arms industry financiers.
Protests led by the Extinction Rebellion reinforced existing European climate activism, which recently led to court decisions such as Klimaatzaak v. A Belgian court issued a verdict against current government’s climate strategies because they were inadequate. The movement fights for banks to uphold the Paris Agreement’s target of 1.5°C global warming limit because the IPCC warns that future climate devastation requires terminating fossil fuel growth in 2030.
