Category: Action Reports

Cli­mate Activists Tell Cana­da: Don’t Cop Out On COP 15!

On Mon­day 14th of Decem­ber, cam­paign­ers from the UK Tar Sands Net­work and Camp for Cli­mate Action protest­ed out­side Cana­da House in Lon­don and shut down Pall Mall Street in Trafal­gar Square to protest against Canada’s attempts to derail the cli­mate change nego­ti­a­tions in Copen­hagen.

Cana­da is one of the biggest cur­rent stum­bling blocks to an ambi­tious and bind­ing cli­mate deal – because it con­tin­ues extract­ing oil from the most destruc­tive project on earth, the Tar Sands. [1] This protest will take place in sol­i­dar­i­ty with sim­i­lar protests in Copen­hagen itself and sev­er­al Cana­di­an cities.

The Tar Sands in Alber­ta, Cana­da, are one of the world’s most pol­lut­ing projects and are hav­ing a dev­as­tat­ing effect on the lives of Indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties and fuelling glob­al cli­mate change. Cur­rent­ly in Copen­hagen, Cana­da is propos­ing an inad­e­quate tar­get for reduc­ing green­house emis­sions by only 3% by 2020 ignor­ing world sci­en­tists’ rec­om­men­da­tions to com­mit to over 40% reduc­tions below 1990 lev­els in order to avoid dan­ger­ous run­away cli­mate change. As a result, inter­na­tion­al crit­i­cism of Cana­da is mount­ing. Last week, a group of 11 Mem­bers of the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment called on the lead­ers of BP, Shell, Sta­toil and Total com­pa­nies to halt pro­duc­tion of oil from the tar sands. [2]

“Cana­da has already spec­tac­u­lar­ly failed to meet its Kyoto Pro­to­col tar­gets and has shown no signs of chang­ing its pri­or­i­ties in Copen­hagen. Instead of mak­ing the nec­es­sary shift to a low car­bon econ­o­my, the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to approve new Tar Sands leas­es and is refus­ing to co-oper­ate with inter­na­tion­al efforts to mit­i­gate the impacts of cli­mate change. This affects the whole world,” says Suzanne Dhali­w­al of the UK Tar Sands Net­work, who will be at the Lon­don protest.

“The Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to ignore its own laws, which state they must con­sult with Indige­nous Peo­ples who have been try­ing to con­vey con­cerns about Tar Sands devel­op­ment. Tar Sands are killing our com­mu­ni­ties and tram­pling over our rights. Fur­ther­more, the envi­ron­men­tal destruc­tion wreaked by the Tar Sands is direct­ly threat­en­ing thou­sands of lives now and is dri­ving our cli­mate into chaos. The world has wok­en up to the fact that Cana­da is now Pub­lic Cli­mate Ene­my Num­ber One. It’s time Cana­da did its glob­al duty and shut down the Tar Sands,” says Clay­ton Thomas-Muller, an Indige­nous activist with the Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Net­work (IEN), who is par­tic­i­pat­ing in the par­al­lel Tar Sands protest in Copen­hagen.

UK cam­paign­ing against the Tar Sands, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with IEN, has focused on BP which plans to enter the Tar Sands through the mas­sive ‘Sun­rise Project’ and the Roy­al Bank of Scot­land, now 84% state-owned, which has invest­ed £8.3 bil­lion in the Tar Sands since 2007 accord­ing to new research by the Rain­for­est Action Net­work.

The “Canada:Don’t Cop out on COP” action will start in Trafal­gar Square, which has been occu­pied by the Camp for Cli­mate Action [3] for the dura­tion of the Copen­hagen nego­ti­a­tions as a base for UK based sol­i­dar­i­ty actions. Cam­paign­ers will then move onto Cana­da House to deliv­er their mes­sage to the Cana­di­an gov­ern­ment.

[1] See the Indige­nous Envi­ron­men­tal Network’s Cana­di­an Indige­nous Tar Sands Cam­paign, www.ienearth.org/cits

[2] http://www.tarsandswatch.org/members-european-parliament-appeal-companies-stop-tar-sand-business

[3] The Camp for Cli­mate Action is a grow­ing grass-roots move­ment of diverse peo­ple tak­ing action on cli­mate change. http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/about

UK Tar Sands Net­work
tarsandsinfocus@googlemail.com
http://tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com

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Cli­mate Refugee San­tas in City Air­port Protest

6 Decem­ber 2009
CLIMATE CAMP PRESS RELEASE:

REFUGEE SANTAS VS POLICE AT LONDON CITY AIRPORT

20 Cli­mate activists dressed as San­ta Claus were pushed out of Lon­don City Air­port depar­tures lounge today by police and secu­ri­ty guards. Presents of car­toon books about the prob­lems with car­bon trad­ing, car­bon ration books, and toy trains were left unde­liv­ered. These were meant for the pas­sen­gers on the final flight to Copen­hagen before the COP15 cli­mate talks begin.

The San­tas’ pho­tog­ra­ph­er was arrest­ed. The activists man­aged to pub­lish a pic­ture of the arrest on Twit­ter (1) along with anoth­er image of the San­tas in action (2)

The activists sang Cli­mate Change-themed Christ­mas car­ols, includ­ing “Silent Plight” and “God Rest We Mer­ry Car­bon Traders”, in the air­port lob­by.

A San­ta Claus said: “The hypocrisy of fly­ing to the Copen­hagen talks is unbe­liev­able. It just goes to show that for the politi­cians and cor­po­rate lob­by­ists in Copen­hagen, these talks are no more than busi­ness as usu­al.

“If gov­ern­ments agree a deal based on false solu­tions like car­bon trad­ing, I shall have to take direct action by get­ting stuck in a whole lot more chim­neys”

Video

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7th Decem­ber: 11.30am This morn­ing pro­test­ers from the Cli­mate Camp have block­ad­ed the entrance to the Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange in Bish­ops­gate, Lon­don [see video].

The COP Out Camp Out at Trafal­gar Square was set up on Sat­ur­day after the mas­sive Wave cli­mate demon­stra­tion ahead of the Cop15 cli­mate con­fer­ence which starts today in Copen­hagen.

The Euro­pean Cli­mate Exchange in Bish­ops­gate was the tar­get and loca­tion of the Cli­mate Camp dur­ing the G20 protests back in April.

For updates see: http://twitter.com/climatecampldn
Video http://www.twitvid.com/19342

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San­ta vis­its BT and expos­es coal invest­ment
Novem­ber 30, 2009

This morn­ing a team of San­ta’s arrived at the BT offices in Bris­tol Tem­ple Quay to expose the truth behind the com­pa­nies pen­sion scheme. BT pen­sions are fund­ing coal min­ing in South Wales, where Merthyr Tyd­fil hosts one of Europe’s largest open­cast coal mines. BT Pen­sion Scheme owns a com­pa­ny called Her­mes who own Argent, of Miller-Argent fame — the com­pa­ny who oper­ate the mine. Staff pen­sion mon­ey is secret­ly being spent on coal min­ing.

No won­der it came as a sur­prise when San­ta came to vis­it…

Arriv­ing at the BT offices at Tem­ple Quay in Bris­tol this morn­ing, San­ta Claus came to say a great big fes­tive NO to coal.

San­ta and his helpers descend­ed upon offices after find­ing out that BT pen­sion schemes are pay­ing for the mas­sive min­ing oper­a­tion at Ffos-y-Fran near Merthyr Tyd­fil in South Wales — one of Europe’s largest open cast coal mines. The mys­tery peo­ple in red say they are rais­ing the issue with BT work­ers, let­ting them know where their pen­sion mon­ey is being invest­ed.

The bemused staff seemed hap­py to be greet­ed by the singing san­tas as they arrived for work, but looked con­cerned with the news of their employ­ers dirty invest­ments.

A jovial woman clutch­ing a hand­ful of Christ­mas cards said “with the cli­mate talks in Copen­hagen com­ing up, the world’s eyes will be on politi­cians strug­gling to come to terms with the threat of cli­mate change.

We want the employ­ees to know that their mon­ey is being invest­ed in coal min­ing in Wales, wors­en­ing the effects of cli­mate change. It is up to them to hold BT account­able for their actions”

The Ffos-y-Fran mine is less than 40 metres from the near­est homes and res­i­dents lives are blight­ed with noise, dust and pol­lu­tion. Merthyr Tyd­fil was the site of the Cli­mate Camp in Wales ear­li­er this year, sup­port­ing local res­i­dents who have been fight­ing against the min­ing oper­a­tions.

San­ta and his helpers hand­ed out Christ­mas cards and sung car­ols to peo­ple as they arrived for work today, explain­ing why they have come to vis­it.

“Coal is the most cli­mate wreck­ing way to pro­duce ener­gy. Real­ly, if we want to stop the worst effects of cli­mate change we need to stop dig­ging it out of the ground and invest in green tech­nolo­gies instead”

“I’m here because I’m seri­ous­ly wor­ried about my home back in the Arc­tic” said Sam, one of the Santa’s. “With pre­dict­ed tem­per­a­ture ris­es, we’ll become refugees and the rein­deer are noto­ri­ous­ly fussy about where they live”.

Email — info@climatecampcymru.org

Notes:

· BT are linked to coal in the fol­low­ing way-BT own BT Pen­sion Scheme (BTPS) who in turn own a com­pa­ny called Her­mes who admin­is­ter the BT pen­sion fund. Her­mes bought the devel­op­ment group Argent (of Miller-Argent) who run the mine at Merthyr Tyd­fil.

· Ffos-y-Fran, locat­ed next to Merthyr Tyd­fil, is one of the biggest coal mines Wales has ever seen. Over the 15 year life­time of this new open­cast mine, more than 10.8 mil­lion tonnes of coal will be extract­ed. Burn­ing this will release 30 mil­lion tonnes of car­bon diox­ide into the atmos­phere – at the same rate each year as the entire coun­try of Mozam­bique!

· Local peo­ple have been oppos­ing the mine for years. More than 10,000 peo­ple signed a peti­tion oppos­ing the mine. Despite this amaz­ing lev­el of oppo­si­tion, the Welsh Assem­bly Gov­ern­ment, encour­aged by West­min­ster, gave the go-ahead to the mine.

· Cli­mate Camp Cym­ru is Wales’ Camp for Cli­mate Action – inspired by the Cli­mate Camp move­ment tak­ing action on cli­mate change in the UK and world­wide. The Camp is com­mit­ted to edu­ca­tion, sus­tain­able liv­ing and sup­port­ing direct action against the root caus­es of cli­mate change.

· Coal is the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel there is – respon­si­ble for 50% of the CO2 added to the atmos­phere since the begin­ning of the indus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion, and 40% of CO2 emis­sions glob­al­ly. Enough of it remains in the ground, if burned, to take us to a sub­stan­tial­ly dif­fer­ent plan­et from the one we know today — and which has exist­ed through­out all of human his­to­ry.

http://www.climatecampcymru.org