Watch the live map of our action here.
It’s on. Moments ago Greenpeace volunteers across the UK, France and Germany arrived on VW forecourts to challenge Volkswagen – Europe’s biggest carmaker – to change its ways.
Our activists are protesting at VW forecourts across the continent, covering display models in black car covers, holding sit-in protests and engaging potential customers to tell them about the real Volkswagen behind the billboards.
VW portrays a progressive green image on its adverts, but the reality is that the company is at the heart of groups trying to weaken important environmental laws. Volkswagen has so far solidly refused to stop lobbying against cuts to CO2 emissions and increases in car efficiency that we so need to combat climate change.
Two days ago, we escalated our confrontation with VW.
Our activists scaled their headquarters in Germany while in the UK we projected a giant message onto Battersea power station where Volkswagen is participating in a car show.
VW responded by saying to the media that they’d invited us to a meeting, but the reality is the opposite: they’ve been ignoring us. To prove it, our German colleagues published the correspondence showing that Volkswagen has not replied to our meeting request for nearly two months.
When we launched this campaign, we believed that Volkswagen was the type of company that would do the right thing and champion strong laws on car efficiency. But VW has so far refused to budge an inch.
And while Volkswagen continues its lobbying, our planet keeps heating up.
This week several of our friends and colleagues are up in the Arctic on one of our Greenpeace ships, measuring the melting ice. Yesterday, we heard the shocking news that the volume of ice at the Arctic had reached its lowest level ever on record.
It’s our consumption of fossil fuels – like oil – that drives up global temperatures and feeds the destruction of the Arctic. And it’s not just the disappearing Arctic. Rising global temperatures affect us wherever we are, whether through higher sea levels or increased food prices.
To get off our addiction to oil we have to change companies like VW. That’s why we’re taking action today.
