press releases

The Stop Esso campaign today launched an international week of action against the oil giant, which culminates on Saturday with protests outside more than 400 garages across the United Kingdom.

Stop Esso week was launched in response to the corporation's role in the sabotage of international action on global warming. Esso (ExxonMobil) has done more than any other company to block efforts to reverse climate change. It has run a ten year dirty tricks campaign against scientists and politicians who think we should reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

Saturday May 18th will see Britain's biggest-ever global warming protest as thousand of people demonstrate outside hundreds of Esso garages, asking drivers to fill up elsewhere. To join an event at your local Stop Esso garage, visit www.stopesso.com or phone 0870 010 9510.

As the United States prepares to launch a trade war over European plans to label all GM food, a new MORI poll reveals that British consumers want European leaders like Tony Blair to stand up to George Bush and defend their right to know what they're eating.

11 Greenpeace volunteers ended their occupation of Sheffield incinerator after protecting the people of the city from polluting gases for 3 days

Offer to pay for Sheffield waste plan rebuffed by Liberal Democrats

The Liberal Democrats were dragged into a national row over incineration today because of Sheffield City Council's determination to build a new waste burner. The national Lib Dems have been branded as hypocrites and electoral opportunists by both Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace after the party tried to face in both directions on the controversial issue of burning rubbish. The national Lib Dems claim to be in favour of a moratorium on the building of new incinerators but in fact the Lib Dem controlled Sheffield City Council is trying to construct a massive waste burner against fierce local opposition.

Despite international opposition two armed British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) ships set sail from Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria this morning, on the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster (1). The two vessels are bound for Japan to collect nuclear material containing enough plutonium to build 50 nuclear bombs. The dangerous cargo is to be delivered to the controversial Sellafield nuclear plant, which is currently the focus of a major campaign by Irish celebrities calling for its shutdown.

Worldwide condemnation of Japan's "scientific" whaling began this week in the countdown to the next International Whaling Commission meeting in Shimonoseki, Japan. Greenpeace activists from Argentina to the UK gathered at Japanese embassies to deliver their protests in the form of whale meat boxes, petitions, letters, postcards, e-mails and faxes. Copied from the originals used by the Japanese whaling fleet , the boxes highlight the commercial reality of so-called "scientific" whaling.

The Stop Esso campaign today condemned oil giant Esso for the role it played in ousting Dr Bob Watson, the respected British-born head of the UN panel on climate change. 

Star Wars activists and independent journalists walk free

Four Greenpeace activists and two independent journalists who faced felony charges following a peaceful protest against the US Star Wars missile programme last July have walked free from court with varying probationary periods and one sentence of time served.(1)

Fifteen international activists and the two journalists originally faced double felony charges and up to six years in jail, but the felony charges were dropped in January when all 17 pled guilty to a misdemeanour offence of conspiracy to trespass. (2)

On Wednesday 17th April at 6pm in the Congress Hall, the Environment Minister, Michael Meacher will meet a delegation of Greenpeace activists to discuss the role of the UK in protecting the world's remaining ancient forests. 

At 9am this morning five Greenpeace volunteers ended their occupation of the MV Roxane Dolmas after an injunction against them was obtained by the shipping company Dolmas Shipping Line. The volunteers had been attempting to prevent the boat unloading wood from Africa's last remaining rainforests. The occupation ended the day before the ministerial meeting of the "Ancient Forest Summit" (Conference on Biological Diversity in The Hague).

No arrests have so far been made.

Greenpeace is urging ministers to agree measures at the Ancient Forest Summit to end the international trade in illegally and destructively logged wood from ancient forests.

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Contact:
Greenpeace press office on 020 7865 8255