A leading climate crisis author has reportedly staged a walkout at the Edinburgh international book festival in protest after its sponsor were said to be linked to fossil fuel companies.
The author and climate activist, Mikaela Loach was said to have interrupted a discussion about changing the climate narrative on Saturday evening to lead a demonstration about the festival’s main sponsor, the investment company Baillie Gifford.
In a video of the protest posted on Instagram on Sunday, she accused the firm of “bankrolling” the climate crisis.
She said to the audience: “I can’t actually in good faith continue just talking about these issues without doing something, especially given that the festival is sponsored by an investment firm that is bankrolling this climate crisis.
Speaking further, she said “Baillie Gifford are an investment firm that have £5bn of investments in the fossil fuel industry. Edinburgh book festival: you wouldn’t burn books, so why are you burning the planet? Drop Baillie Gifford.”
Loach appeared to choke back tears as she described the catastrophic impact of global heating before leading the audience on to the street with chants of “Hey, hey, ho, ho – Baillie Gifford’s got to go”.
Read also: UK homes install solar panels, heat pumps
In an emotional speech, the author said: “I think, especially recently, if you look across the world, Maui is literally on fire as we’ve seen right now,”. “I don’t know if my ancestral land will still be there if I have children or if I have descendants. And the reason for this is because of investments in fossil fuels.
She was further quoted as saying “The reason for this is because of fossil fuel companies not caring about the climate crisis, whether they say they do or not. So we have to remove that finance from them, any tactic that we can, we have to stop them from being able to exist.”
She said that she would rather be discussing her book, It’s Not That Radical: Climate Action to Transform Our World, with her fellow panellists than having to stage the protest.
More than 50 authors, including Zadie Smith, Ali Smith and Katherine Rundell sent an open letter this week calling on the festival to drop any sponsor that invests in fossil fuels. It followed the announcement earlier this month by climate activist Greta Thunberg that she was cancelling her scheduled appearance at the festival, accusing Baillie Gifford of “greenwashing”.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
