Over the past several months Bristol Greenpeace has continued to campaign against Canada's Tar Sands - the most destructive and dirtiest method of extracting oil. The group has managed to get some 500 cards signed by the public to support the proposed EU Fuel Quality Directive which would effectively ban dirty Tar Sands oil products from entering Europe.
To coincide with the start of the UN Climate Change talks in Durban, over fifty Greenpeace activists from all round the country took direct action to blockade both major entrances to the UK’s Department of Transport (DfT) in London whilst other campaigners demonstrated with banners outside British embassies in Paris, Berlin and Stockholm. The British government were targeted after documents released showed how officials from its transport department have been working to sabotage the key European proposal that would block tar sands oil, the dirtiest oil in the world, from ending up in petrol pumps across Europe. It is nothing short of scandalous that the UK government is doing Big Oil’s dirty work following lobbying by oil majors including BP and Shell
As the video below shows the teams of Greenpeace activists used large plywood boards, vehicles, locks and chains to seal off the doorways of the DfT to stop officials from getting into their offices. The boards were painted with a gigantic ‘lobbying handshake’ and marked with the brands of oil companies BP, Shell and Exxon. Other activists unfurled a huge banner reading, ‘HM Department for Tar Sands’ whilst many others chained themselves together and to the doorways so as to make any eviction attempt more difficult.
The direct action occured less than a week before officials from all over Europe were due to meet in Brussels for a possible decision about whether they will approve the ‘Fuel Quality Directive.’ This would effectively prevent the most polluting fuels in the world from entering European forecourts, and bring down the carbon footprint of Europe’s transport fuels by 6% between 2010 and 2020. If passed the directive would deal a major blow to plans to expand Canada’s tar sands oil extraction programme, which is why the oil industry – and the UK on their behalf - has mounted an aggressive lobbying effort to kill the plan. A majority of European countries must back the plan for it to become law, and right now the vote could go either way because of a UK-led diplomatic offensive to scupper it.
The complicity of the UK government in Tar Sands' destruction of the environment and the lives of First Nation population like the Beaver Lake Cree is absolutely astounding. Greenpeace is right to highlight the government's indiscretion on this crucial matter. ..... greenest government ever? No way!
Comments