While heading for the French port, eight activists from the Greenpeace ship MV Greenpeace,

boarded the Norwegian owned tanker, Anna Knutsen, and attached a banner which read "BUSH +

ESSO + CHEVRON + CONOCO = CLIMATE KILLERS".

"Oilman President George Bush together with his oil company

backers have taken on the mantle of spoilers in the climate change

negotiations," said Greenpeace campaigner Paul Horsman from on

board the MV Greenpeace. "Greenpeace is stopping this US oil to

send a message that Esso, Chevron and Conoco cannot just continue

business as usual when that business is wrecking the climate."

"When President Bush rejected the Kyoto protocol, he provoked

international outrage," said Horsman. "Greenpeace can only stop one

tanker, but other people can send a clear message to Bush's oil

industry supporters that 'business as usual' is unacceptable.

The publication of the most recent climate science reports earlier

this year further confirmed the global scientific consensus that human

activities were affecting the climate and the consequences were

going to be worse and earlier than previously thought. Scientists from

the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change upgraded their

previous global warming predictions to six degrees C temperature

rise over the next century

"Thousands have already died and millions made homeless from

extreme weather events caused by climate change," said Horsman.

"They have been killed and displaced as a direct result of the

ongoing and increasing use of fossil fuels used to drive the profligate

industrial and energy consumption of the industrialised countries - led

by the USA. If Esso and the rest of the oil companies don't change,

the climate will and many will die as a consequence."

"We will know this week just how destructive George W Bush's

commitment to oil over the climate will be when he sits down in

Gothenburg, Sweden, with the European heads of government to

negotiate the future of the climate talks," said Horsman. "We urge the

EU to proceed to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, with or without the US"

This action is part of Greenpeace's global campaign to pressure

corporate America and George W Bush to work with the rest of the

world to save the climate.