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Older climate activists gathered in cities around the country for a day of action targeting banks that finance fossil fuel projects.

They were parents, grandparents, great-aunts and great-uncles, ranging in age from their 50s to their 80s and beyond, and together they braved frigid temperatures to protest all through the night, and to rock.

Bundled in long johns, puffer coats, layered knit hats and sleeping bags, and fortified by cookies sent by courier from a sympathetic supporter, dozens of graying protesters sat in rocking chairs outside of four banks in downtown Washington for 24 hours, in a nationwide protest billed as the largest climate action ever undertaken by older folks.

Calling themselves the Rocking Chair Rebellion, they were part of more than 100 climate actions staged across the country Tuesday by Third Act, a protest group for people aged 60 and older, co-founded by Bill McKibben, the author and climate campaigner.

Their targets were Chase, the subsidiary of JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citibank and Bank of America, the biggest investors in fossil fuel projects, according to a 2022 report by the Rainforest Action Network and other environmental groups. Collectively, the four banks have poured more than $1 trillion between 2016 and 2021 into oil and gas.

“This is the world we helped create,” said Katie Ries, 66, who is retired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as she sat in a rocking chair outside the Chase branch in downtown Washington shortly after an unseasonably cold dawn on Tuesday. “When you put this temporary discomfort in perspective, against what we are out here for, what we are facing, it just pales, it disappears.”

Formed in 2021, Third Act has some 50,000 members on its mailing list, according to Mr. McKibben, including a few centenarians. While the group has staged protests before, sometimes bearing signs that read “fossils against fossil fuels,” they said that Tuesday’s actions were the biggest yet, with participants driven in part by the conviction that it was unfair to lay responsibility for fixing the climate crisis at the feet of younger generations who will bear its brunt.

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