- As US President George Bush prepares to visit Europe this week to negotiate the future of the Kyoto Protocol, Greenpeace today stopped a tanker delivering US owned oil to Le Havre, France.
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.
Original: Greenpeace Blocks US Oil Delivery to Protest GW Bush's Climate Stance