energy

Check this out. The video above is a live feed from a tar sands facility in Canada, where Greenpeace teams are shutting down a conveyor belt and blocking a bridge. It just started in the last half hour so details on this side of the Atlantic are scant, but keep an eye on the live feeds from the two locations (location one here, location two here) and keep up with the #stoptarsands tag on Twitter, helpfully Scribbled below.

It's not just on this country that people get so riled about climate change that they're driven into taking drastic action, action such as, oh I don't know, climbing a chimney stack in a coal-fired power station.

A new series of videos from our Indian office (compiled into one above) showcases six activists who explain why they climbed the chimney at Kolaghat power station in October 2007 and spent a few days in jail after their arrest.

Last week saw some high-flying direct action from our Australia Pacific colleagues. Coal export facilities in Queensland were occupied for days by climbers hanging like fruit bats from the rigging, and our ship the Esperanza was on hand to help enforce the blockade.

Meanwhile, politicians from Pacific nations were in Cairns to debate strategies for tackling climate change - but the outcome of their meeting was anything but positive.

While today is unlikely to go down in the annals of history as Green Wednesday, it's still a significant day for those of us concerned about climate change as climate and energy secretary Ed Miliband unveils his big energy strategy.

The strategy - the Low Carbon Transition Plan, no less - comes in the form of not one but a whole ream of papers (including an energy white paper) covering renewable energy, transport, industry and carbon budgets. Together, they form a blueprint explaining how the government hopes to achieve the emissions reductions it's legally obliged to deliver, thanks to the EU renewable energy targets and the UK's own Climate Change Act.

Was it a red letter day for green energy? Let's see.

This piece by Greenpeace UK executive director John Sauven first appeared on Comment Is Free.

Against the backdrop of the worldwide economic downturn, it is ironic that the area often said to have the least business certainty, the renewables sector, is one of the few success stories. Globally this industry is bucking the trends, creating millions of new green jobs, increasing countries' energy independence and reducing climate-changing emissions. So it is scandalous that the CBI should come out attacking the prime minister and the climate change secretary Ed Miliband's commitment to boosting this industry in Britain just days before the launch of a fresh government initiative.