PROTESTERS gathered in Edinburgh today to demand that Scotland’s largest investment company drop its ties with oil and gas company TotalEnergies.

Extinction Rebellion activists held banners outside the lobby of Aberdeen Group plc, reading “aberdeen drop Total” and “Stop EACOP.”

EACOP, the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, is a 1,443km crude oil pipeline under construction since 2017, intended to export from Uganda’s Tilenga and Kingfisher oil fields to the Port of Tanga, Tanzania, on the Indian Ocean.

Communities along the route have reported human rights abuses through land grabs, pollution and intimidation.

XR Edinburgh spokeswoman Cathy Allen said: “Financial institutions that support TotalEnergies are busy glossing and shining their investment reports with a veneer of ‘sustainability’ to cover up their violent tracks.  

“One such is Aberdeen Group plc, seasoned purveyor of verbose reports, plump with apparent virtue, but septic with toxic investments.

“We see their financial signature writ large on those who bear the burden of the mega EACOP pipeline ripping across their livelihoods, water, food, culture and well-being and pumping yet more polluting heat on an already destabilised climate.

“Investing in TotalEnergies … is surely by any moral compass, at the very least, conspiracy in global terrorism.”