Blog: Climate

Stop Esso campaign logo

The UK Stop Esso campaign was launched in May 2001 by coalition members Greenpeace, People and Planet and Friends of the Earth.

Bianca Jagger unveiled a "Boycott Esso" mobile billboard at the campaign launch. The Body Shop, Annie Lennox, Ralph Fiennes, Jerome Flynn, Damien Hirst, Keith Allen and several politicians signed up to the boycott.

On the first Stop Esso Day, in villages, towns and cities across the UK and Ireland, over 3000 people peacefully and legally campaigned at Esso petrol stations.

Stop Esso Day II saw Julia Sawalha and Alan Davies join the protests at Esso petrol stations.

These were the largest non-violent direct actions against global warming ever seen in the UK.

May 2002 also marked the launch of Stop ExxonMobil, a US campaign aimed at Esso's parent company. Over the following months, Stop Esso spread around the globe.

Global warming is caused by burning fossil fuels (oil, coal and gas). It is the biggest environmental problem we face today, and the effects - extreme weather, drought and disease - are already being felt.

To counter the effects of global warming, the burning of fossil fuels must be reduced and phased out over the next 30-40 years.

Spoils of war

Esso is doing more than any other company to keep the US hooked on oil. This is fuelling Bush's war and causing global warming.

For decades Esso (ExxonMobil in the USA) has opposed any policy seeking to reduce the need for oil in the US.

Oil spill from Prestige tanker

Latest...
Oil is now covering more than 500 km of the Spanish Coast, carried by the Gulf Stream. The Spanish Government has conceded that more than 20,000 metric tonnes has leaked from the Prestige. And experts expect the Portugese coast to be affected next...

Action!
As the clean-up operation continues to lack co-ordination, Greenpeace activists protested outside the Galician provincial Government building in La Coruna on Saturday - confronting the Vice President with buckets of oil collected from a nearby beach.