Update: 02:00 Hot, exhausted and but still growling, the volunteer who spent nearly 15 hours up a 60ft light mast in a tiger costume was finally craned off by the police and arrested at around 8pm. She was one of the last Greenpeace volunteers to be removed from Esso's fuel supply depot. As they were removed, one by one, and led away by the police the volunteers waved to the supporters at the gates and got waves and cheers of support in return.
17th July- Four Greenpeace volunteers boarded a tanker chartered by US oil company ExxonMobil (known as Esso in parts of Europe) in the port of Vado Ligure to stop the discharge of oil from the 80,000 tonne tanker Clare Spirit. The ship was carrying oil from the North Sea Forties field. The activists are aiming to prevent the discharge pipe from being connected to stop operations.
The action comes at the beginning of the renewed climate talks in Bonn and 3 days before the G-8 government leaders are due to meet in Genoa which will discuss both the climate treaty and the recently released G-8 renewable energy task force report.
Greenpeace dismisses George Bush's speech in the Rose Garden on climate change, saying that his interpretation of climate science is fantasy at best, and deliberately misleading at worst.
Repeating the mantra of the US fossil fuel industry, Bush called for more scientific research while at the same time rejecting any real action to protect the climate.
A newly published MORI poll for the Stop Esso Campaign shows 53 percent of petrol buyers would boycott Esso because of the company's attempts to block action on global warming.
Figures for Esso's existing customers are virtually identical. A telephone survey by Greenpeace of leading supermarkets revealed that ASDA, Tesco and Morrisons do not supply Esso fuels, Safeway's does supply Esso fuels and Sainsbury's refuse to reveal its suppliers.
BP must take heed of a significant vote at its Annual General Meeting today on a Greenpeace resolution calling for the company to take seriously the threats of climate change on fossil fuel investments and protect its shareholders financial future earnings by investing in renewable energy.
Today's initial proxy vote, displayed at the meeting today, showed 919 million shares, or 7.4 per cent of the vote, in favour of the resolution. Votes of the shareholders attending today's meeting have yet to be counted.
At 6.30 am today, police boarded the ship MV Greenpeace, in Blyth Harbour, near Newcastle, and arrested six people including the ship's captain in connection with Greenpeace's campaign to stop oil exploration. Police have still not made it clear what the charge is against the Greenpeace volunteers.
The ship had been due to sail to Stockholm at 8am today as part of an international campaign to highlight chemical pollution in the Baltic Sea.
Greenpeace Executive Director Stephen Tindale said:
Six Greenpeace volunteer climbers today (6/4/01 at 6.30 am) dramatically scaled an operating oil rig out in the middle of North Sea to stop it drilling for oil and fuelling dangerous global warming which is threatening the lives of millions and flooding homes.
At dawn today three Greenpeace volunteers began their descent from the 180ft drillstack. The Greenpeace volunteers have maintained their occupation of the JET drillstar for over 24 hrs, successfully preventing it from going to sea to drill for more killer oil.
One of the three volunteer climbers just down from the rig said, "we spent most of yesterday positioned half way up the drillstack determined to prevent the rig from moving to drill for more oil, but as it started to get cold and dark we made our way further up the drillstack to join the six other climbers who had already made a safe warm base."
JET/Conoco, an American company, is one of the ten largest oil companies in the world. The marketing and retailing (downstream) end of the business uses the name JET, while the exploration and production (upstream) end uses the name Conoco. JET/Conoco bosses have consistently denied the link between the oil they produce and global warming. Worse still, JET/Conoco is one of the major funders of US president George Bush, who has recently reneged on a pre-election pledge to tackle greenhouse gas emissions.
Nine Greenpeace volunteers were barricaded up in the oil-rigs 180ft drill stack, before abseiling down the JET rig to safety. The climbers were in good spirits and determined to stop JET wrecking the climate with more oil.
Laura Yates, Greenpeace volunteer, said "It was windy and starting to get cold, but we were feeling really pleased that we managed to stop the Jet oilrig from going out to sea to drill for more oil that we can't burn".
