At some point in the near future, provided we find a job at all, we are going to have to face the unfortunate reality of what adults call the ‘income tax’. What is particularly unfair is that, despite being too young to have had anything to do with the current financial crisis, it is our generation who are going to have to pay for the government’s use of public money to bail out the banks largely responsible for causing it.

As of October 2008, the government owns 70% of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). Nationalisation should have given the government an unprecedented level of control over RBS investments. Why, then, have RBS since loaned an estimated £10 billion to coal, oil and gas companies? These include Cairn Energy, an oil company operating in previously pristine parts of Greenland’s Arctic; E.ON, a coal company with controversial new Europe-wide plans for expansion; and finally Tullow Oil, who operate in the conflict zone on the border between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, where they should be boycotting commercial involvement in the region. The conclusion we draw is that the Treasury gave approval to a number of highly unethical investment policies inconsistent with the government’s professed commitment to tackle climate change and reduce carbon emissions. And, furthermore, that they used public money to do it.

Three popular campaign groups – World Development Movement (WDM), Platform, and People and Planet – have decided the Treasury has breached its responsibility to the electorate, and in June attempted to take them to court. Since then, the government has hurried to carry out a ‘green book’ assessment of its environmental and human rights obligations in RBS, but concluded that its primary responsibility was to manage it in a ‘commercial’ way. The campaigners insisted that taxpayers’ funds be spent only on projects that fund a ‘sustainable and ethical future’, through a formal review of RBS’s portfolio. The court date has been set for this month. In the lead-up to the crucial global climate talks in Copenhagen in December, this issue promises to be an embarrassing one for the Treasury.

The irony is that the British government professes to be a leader in world action on environmental issues: the Department of Energy and Climate Change has recently produced two plans to tackle them, an energy efficiency scheme and the new aim set out in the budget of cutting emission levels by 34% by 2020. Also by 2020 they aim to have more than 1.2 million people in ‘green’ jobs, and around 40% of electricity from low-carbon sources, from renewables, nuclear and ‘clean’ coal. Though laudable, these aims seem highly in conflict with the Treasury’s management of RBS.

The case may be a difficult one to prove, but it sets a landmark precedent. Legal experts are speculating as to whether existing human rights legislation could be used by communities and nations impacted by climate change to take action against large polluters. Surely it is worth making the attempt? It is not just our money but our very future that is at stake, and as (prospective) effective shareholders in RBS, and as fully participatory members of this democracy, we should have a voice. Sign the petition at www.peopleandplanet.org.

This is also a Cambridge issue. Trinity’s investments in the arms trade are well documented, though they have been reduced in reaction to a student petition and demonstration in Lent 2007. The University as a whole has also produced a manifesto in support of ‘ethical’ investment, but without committing it to an active policy. Information on its areas of investment is still refused on the grounds of commercial interest.

CUSU’s Socially Responsible Investment Policy for the University would prohibit investment in companies which fail to uphold basic human rights within their sphere of influence, and proposes the formation of a council to hold the University to account. This proposal is not without precedent: both St Andrew’s and Oxford University have SRIs as, of course, does the Church of England, whose exemplary policy has also proved to be extremely profitable. If you want to get involved, a number of cards are circulating on which students can register their complaints about Cambridge’s investment policy, which will be sent to the appropriate authority; the CUSU SRI website will soon enable you to bombard them with protest emails. Pester your fellow students; petition your college bursar.

As a heartening example of what student pressure can achieve, look to Edinburgh University. Last year, the Edinburgh Students’ Association passed a motion for the university to use its £9.2 million investments in – you guessed it – RBS, to pressure the bank to stop funding fossil fuel extraction. If RBS has failed to withdraw its funds by the 2009 AGM, the university is expected to sell its shares. RBS is starting to pay the price for its abuse of the public trust. Don’t let it stop here.