Barclays funds climate breakdown. We are determined to make it stop | Seema Syeda

The bank is a huge backer of the fossil fuel industry and attendant climate catastrophe. Direct action is vital

From Cyclone Idai, which has killed hundreds in south-east Africa, to flooding in Bangladesh - where my family is from - for decades climate change has been devastating communities in the global south. More recently these effects have begun to be felt by people in the UK too: just last month, wildfires raged on Saddleworth Moor, while where I live in Brixton, the air is so polluted I suffer from breathing problems.

We all know that the impact of climate change is felt unequally, depending on where you live, how wealthy you are and how easily you can shield yourself from its effects. Less widely known, however, is that responsibility for the crisis is unequal too. In recent years we have been sold a lie: that ordinary people are to blame for the climate crisis. It's our spending and our consumption habits that have created the mess we're in, we are told, not the bankers, oil companies and a rich elite.