When Jessica Gaitán Johannesson led a mass walkout at an Edinburgh book festival event last weekend, she told the audience: “If it was enough to tell stories and hold conversations on a stage then the same festival that invites climate activists wouldn’t also be funded by money that contributes to climate breakdown.”
Johannesson, along with fellow authors Mikaela Loach and Mohamed Tonsy, disrupted Loach’s Saturday evening event as they called on the festival to drop its main sponsor, Baillie Gifford, after revelations that it has billions invested in companies that profit from fossil fuels, prompting the climate activist Greta Thunberg to cancel her own book festival appearance.
