An Extinction Rebellion (XR) protester glued shut the door of Farnham’s Barclays branch on Monday in a protest against the bank’s investment in fossil fuels.

Video footage of the Farnham protest was shared on Twitter by the XR South East group, and it also coincided with XR protests in Guildford and Reigate.

At 12 noon on Monday, three members of Extinction Rebellion Waverley glued their hands to the window inside the Barclays branch in North Street, Guildford, wearing placards with the words ‘This Bank Funds Fossil Fuels’, ‘Move Your Money’, and ‘Barclays are Climate Criminals’.

Other members of Extinction Rebellion from Guildford and Waverley were inside and outside the branch explaining to customers and passers-by why they were taking this action against Barclays.

One, Clive Teague, 74, a retired structural engineer from Farnham, and his wife Beverley, said: “We are acting against Barclays today because they continue to use their customers’ money to finance coal, gas and oil exploration and exploitation.

“After 40 years as customers of Barclays we closed our account due to their refusal to acknowledge that their policies and actions are fuelling the destruction of our world.”

Another, Victor, 59, a software developer and father of four sons from Bordon, said: “I am here because I am deeply shocked and troubled by the worldwide impacts of the rapidly worsening climate crisis.

“I have a moral obligation to take part in peaceful actions aimed at pressing businesses to implement immediate and meaningful change. Without massive changes our children have no hope.”

According to XR, if the UK banking sector was a country, it would be the world’s ninth biggest polluter. Barclays has been targeted across the UK with at least 40 demonstrations by Extinction Rebellion since the start of 2022.

A Barclays spokesman said the bank would not comment directly on the protest, but defended its climate record, saying it has a strategy to become net zero by 2050 and has invested £175m of its own capital “into innovative, green start-ups”.

A Barclays spokesperson said: “We are determined to play our part in addressing the urgent and complex challenge of climate change.

“In March 2020 we were one of the first banks to set an ambition to become net zero by 2050, across all of our direct and indirect emissions, and we committed to align all of our financing activities with the goals and timelines of the Paris Agreement.

“We have a three-part strategy to turn that ambition into action: achieving net zero operations, reducing our financed emissions, and financing the transition.

“In practice, this means we have set 2030 targets to reduce our financed emissions in four of the highest emitting sectors in our financing portfolio, with additional 2025 targets for the two highest-emitting sectors – energy and power.

“We have also provided over £80bn of green financing and we are investing our own capital – £175m – into innovative, green start-ups.”