Didcot Camp Action Round Up: 18 actions against the fossil fuel industry

Block­ades, shut­downs, lock-ons, love-ins, tripods and nanas…..Reclaim the Power’s day of action against the fos­sil fuel indus­try today (1 June 2015) saw 18 dif­fer­ent actions draw­ing the dots between big ener­gy firms, gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, pub­lic rela­tions com­pa­nies, oil arts spon­sor­ship and the frack­ing indus­try.

Let’s take a run-down of the day’s events…(more text and pics com­ing soon!)

Action 1: 9.04am – Npower’s debt collection and pre-payment meter office in Leeds blockaded

We’ve all had the threat­en­ing let­ters from ener­gy com­pa­nies demand­ing pay­ment for bills we can’t afford – and today we hit back. Reclaim the Pow­er groups vis­it­ed RWE Npower’s offices in Leeds and block­ad­ed the front doors. Many house­holds are forced onto pre-pay­ment meters which are more expen­sive than direct deb­it accounts.

Action 2: 9.08am – Delegates at World Coal Association conference locked out of Institute of Directors

The coal indus­try are try­ing to con­tin­ue burn­ing fos­sil fuels by dan­gling the promise of Car­bon-Cap­ture-and-Stor­age tech­nol­o­gy. Con­fer­ence del­e­gates at a World Coal Asso­ca­tion event found all five entrances to the exclu­sive Insti­tute of Direc­tors blocked this morn­ing. There no arrests but lots of marigolds.

Action 3: 9.09am “Wind not gas” protest at DECC

Cheeky pro­test­ers high­light­ed the con­tin­ued fos­sil fuel bias with­in the Depart­ment for Ener­gy and Cli­mate Change by blockad­ing its steps. Rowan Tilly explained, “Against the advice of their own Com­mit­tee on Cli­mate Change, the gov­ern­ment has approved the con­struc­tion of up to 30 new gas-fired pow­er sta­tions, and intends to go ‘all out’ for shale gas – with up to two thirds of the UK licensed for frack­ing. This new dash for gas is reck­less­ly at odds with our nation­al and inter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions on cli­mate change and must be resist­ed, for both the sake of our­selves and future gen­er­a­tions.

“We are now find­ing our­selves at a stage where we don’t know where gov­ern­ment ends and cor­po­ra­tions begin and unless we act now we will soon find our­selves be locked into infra­struc­ture which will burn car­bon for years to come whilst killing off renew­able ener­gy, with polit­i­cal deci­sions ruled by prof­it and act­ing in igno­rance of the bla­tant dan­gers of cli­mate change. We sim­ply can’t afford to let this hap­pen.”

Action 4: 9.10am – Invesco’s Revolving Door between government and Drax

Con­tin­u­ing this theme, Reclaim the Pow­er activists vis­it­ed the offices of Invesco – the invest­ment man­age­ment com­pa­ny which owns 26% of Drax coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in York­shire. New DECC junior min­is­ter Andrea Lead­man worked at Invesco for 10 years before tak­ing up her post in gov­ern­ment. The revolv­ing doors were lit­er­al­ly blocked and ban­ner dropped above the Lon­don Wall road.

Action 5: 9.30am – Polishing a turd: office occupation of Media Zoo

Pub­lic rela­tions firm ‘Media Zoo’ rep­re­sent chem­i­cals giant Ineos – who have recent­ly pledged £640 mil­lion invest­ment in frack­ing. Eight activists occu­pied their offices in Impe­r­i­al Wharf, Lon­don car­ry­ing a ban­ner ban­ner read­ing, ‘Frack­ing is Shit. You can’t pol­ish a turd.’ They used arm tubes lock ons to stay put. Sev­en peo­ple were arrest­ed around lunch time.

Mediazoo’s web­site boasts exten­sive expe­ri­ence of deal­ing with “indus­tri­al dis­putes”, “fatal acci­dents” and “child labour”. They are con­sult­ing Ineos on PR and media strat­e­gy. The CEO of Ineos Upstream Gary Hay­wood said, “I want Ineos to be the biggest play­er in the shale gas indus­try.” Medi­a­zoo were respon­si­ble for what UNITE described as Ineos’s “cam­paign of fear” dur­ing the dis­pute at Grange­mouth oil refin­ery in Scot­land when 1400 work­ers fought cuts to pay, jobs and pen­sions.

Action 6: 9.45am – Anti-nukes visit Carmargue PR firm

As well as rep­re­sent­ing RWE Npow­er, pub­lic rela­tions firm Camar­gue also spin the work of Hori­zon Nuclear Ener­gy. 12 pro­test­ers tar­get­ed the firm’s offices in Soho. Clare Jones said, “The pub­lic has a right to be informed about the real dan­gers of nuclear – from can­cer to con­t­a­m­i­na­tion to cli­mate change. For the cost of build­ing one nuclear pow­er sta­tion you could build over 1000 off­shore wind tur­bines.”

Action 7: 10.25am – Energy UK lobby group blockaded

Ener­gy UK is the trade body for the Big Six ener­gy com­pa­nies. They have lob­bied the gov­ern­ment to intro­duce the ‘Capac­i­ty Mar­ket’ into the recent Ener­gy Act (2014) – which uses pub­lic mon­ey to sub­sidise new gas pow­er sta­tions. Three peo­ple block­ad­ed the entrance, includ­ing two in an arm tube lock on.  There were two arrests.

Action 8: 10.30am – Big Six Love-in at Oxfordshire Conservative Party headquarters

Action 9: 10.55am – RWE Npower headquarters in Swindon blockaded

Action 10: All morning – Subvertising in Oxford

Action 11: The Bill of Wrongs at British Gas HQ near Oxford

Action 12: 12.11pm – Lancashire Nanas link fracking and gas-fire power stations at Didcot B

Action 13: 1.00pm – Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ rebranded by Shell

Action 14: 1.00pm – Avonmouth Biofuel plant invaded

Action 15: 1.30pm – “No stone left unfracked” Tripod fracking rig erected at London City Hall

Action 16: 1.41pm – Edelman PR firm deliver first fracked baby (trigger warning)

Action 17: 2.00pm – Blockade of Cuadrilla offices in Lichfield (again!)

Action 18: 2.30pm – Occupation of Imperial College’s Department of Mining