Protesters halt NatWest shareholder meeting as boss defends climate policy

The annual general meeting (AGM) was being held on Tuesday morning but had to be stopped for about half an hour amid disruption during chairman Rick Haythornthwaite’s opening speech.

Protesters were singing and making statements about NatWest’s climate policies.

The statement said investors are “concerned by the bank’s changed outlook on climate change” having “reduced the ambition of its fossil fuel policy and climate targets”.

“The bank dropped its commitment not to finance oil and gas majors lacking a credible transition plan or failing to report their overall emissions,” it said.

She added that the vote should be seen as a “clear warning that confidence is already being eroded, and that further backtracking will carry real governance consequences”.

Mr Haythornthwaite responded to the statements saying that he “takes climate change very seriously, as does all of this board” and that he was happy to meet the group.

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“We’ve had to wrestle with the questions of how do we balance supporting our customers in their transition efforts with managing the risks in what is an increasingly complex policy environment,” he said.

He stressed that the bank’s “overwhelming” balance of lending was on renewables and that oil and gas financing comprises 0.6% of total lending.

NatWest also retained targets to at least halve the climate impact of its financing activity by 2030, against a 2019 baseline.

“I don’t want to take what sounds like a backtracking as a major shift,” Mr Haythornthwaite said, adding that “these targets matter”.