Three climate activists are this morning due in Westminster Magistrate’s Court charged with criminal damage against the Canadian High Commission in London following an action to stop the Tar Sands..
On December 15th, while the International Climate Summit was taking place in Copenhagen, the protesters scaled the entrance to the Canadian High Commission in Grosvenor Square. They cut loose the Canadian flag, before defacing it with crude oil while unfurling a banner reading “Shut Down the Tar Sands”.
The action was a response to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s obstruction of the summit in Copenhagen in order to protect Canada’s Tar Sands Industry [1]. Tar Sands are the dirtiest fuel known to man, both in terms of its impact on the climate and the devastation inflicted on the
local communities [2].
There is an enormous open cast mine in the Alberta Tar Sands region of Canada, where an area the total size of England will be exploited. This is the largest industrial development in the world and is devastating for the indigenous communities that live there, not only destroying the land
itself but increasing levels of cancer, poisoning much of their traditional food sources and leaving the water unsafe to drink [3]. This violates the indigenous treaty rights legally bound to this region.
Jake Colman, 20, Bradley Day, 22, and Daniel Whitely, 19, are all participants in the Camp for Climate Action [4], an action group that occupied Trafalgar Square for the two-week duration of the Climate Summit.
Bradley Day, a waiter from Oxford, speaking after the action:
“This is just the beginning of a UK-based direct action campaign to stop Canadian Tar Sands. These murderous ventures are being funded from within the UK, with the Royal Bank of Scotland, now 84%-owned by the public investing billions, and British Petroleum currently preparing to move in
to Tar Sands. [5] We won’t stand by and let these greed driven corporations cause catastrophic environmental and human destruction.”
Clayton Thomas-Muller, an Indigenous activist with the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN), spoke during the Copenhagen summit:
“The Canadian government continues to ignore its own laws, which state they must consult with Indigenous Peoples who have been trying to convey concerns about Tar Sands development. Tar Sands are killing our communities and trampling over our rights. Furthermore, the environmental destruction wreaked by the Tar Sands is directly threatening thousands of lives now and is driving our climate into chaos. The world has woken up to the fact that Canada is now Public Climate Enemy Number One. It’s time Canada did its global duty and shut down the Tar Sands,”
NOTES TO EDITORS:
[1] At the failed Copenhagen Climate Summit, Canada proposed an inadequate target for reducing greenhouse emissions by only 3% by 2020 ignoring world scientists’ recommendations to commit to over 40% reductions below 1990 levels in order to avoid dangerous runaway climate change. Canada already failed to meet its commitments to the Kyoto Treaty and refuses to sign the UN’s Declaration of Rights for Indigenous Peoples whilst continuing development of Tar Sands oil extraction.
[2] Tar Sands fuel is a way of extracting oil who’s energy intensive process has not only completely destroyed areas of the Boreal forests the size of England, burns enough natural gas to power 6 hundred thousand homes a year, produces lakes of toxic waste 66km wide -which filters into
all local life and drinking water- but would itself be enough to push our climate into chaos.
http://tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com/about/
[3] http://tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com/about/
[5] This is the start of a fast growing UK campaign against Tar Sands. Although we do not receive oil directly from Canadian Tar Sands, Corporations such as RBS which is now 84% owned by the British Tax Payer invests billions and British Petroleum have plans to move in to the ‘Sun Rise’ site in the coming months. Action on these issues and these corporations are soon to become a focus of UK activism as we begin to stand up to International injustices such as Tar Sands in Canada.
Stop the Tar Sands