When President Bush announced in March 2001 that the US would be pulling out of the Kyoto Treaty, the mark of the fossil fuel industry was all over his policy. One company stands out from the rest as having done more than any other to bring about Bush's climate climb-down. For the last 10 years Esso (ExxonMobil in the US) has been working consistently and systematically to derail any international action to tackle global warming.
At 5.30am this morning, fifty-two Greenpeace volunteers and five 'rogue' tigers shut down Esso's fuel distribution centre at Purfleet, Essex. The volunteers shut down the plant to put pressure on Esso to protect the planet. Esso is the world's number one global warming villain and is behind George Bush's refusal to sign up the US to the Kyoto climate treaty. Purfleet supplies Esso fuels to the South East from Hastings to the Wash.
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.
Much buoyed by the ongoing occupation of the Exxon tanker near Genoa, our delegation spread out early this morning across the conference center, gathering information and position papers, and focussing on the details of the negotiations for their assigned groups.
Today is the last day that substantive progress can be made before the ministers start the political negotiations in earnest tomorrow.
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.
The big news at the conference today was Japanese Environment Minister Kawaguchi's press conference where she confirmed that Japan was here to negotiate seriously, and had a mandate to come to an agreement. We also understand that Japanese press is reporting the Prime Minister Koizumi has withdrawn his statements from over the weekend about no agreement in Bonn. It is clear that Japan is responding to public and political pressure from around the world. Unfortunately, inside the negotiations, they're backtracking and appear to be trying to wreck the negotiations - we'll keep you updated.
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.
