GREENPEACE
SHUTS DOWN ESSO PIPELINE IN UK AND INSTALLS FIRST OFFSHORE WINDMILL IN
NORTH SEA
Amsterdam,
11am CST, 25th July, 2001: At 11am today Greenpeace began installing the
first offshore-windmill in the North Sea to stop the site being drilled
for gas. At
5.30am this morning 52 Greenpeace volunteers and five "rogue tigers"
shut down Esso’s fuel distribution center at Purfleet, in southeast England.
“We must take real action to protect the planet from catastrophic climate change. Companies like Esso must be shut down, and energy must be generated from cleaner sources like wind,” said Steve Sawyer, Greenpeace campaigner.
“The world’s governments have woken up to the most critical environmental problem and defied George Bush on the threat of dangerous climate change by agreeing on the Kyoto Protocol. It is now time to act to protect the planet,” Sawyer said.
“We will look back to the 23rd July 2001 - the day the Kyoto Protocol was agreed by the world’s governments without the USA - as the day the world turned away from the fossil fuel polluted past toward a clean energy future.
“We are now facing in the right direction, but the urgency of dangerous climate change, means that facing the right way is not enough. We must take the first tentative steps toward a clean energy 21st century,“ Sawyer added.
Greenpeace
volunteers shut down the Purfleet 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.
A team of Greenpeace volunteers blocked Esso tankers at the entrance and exit to the fuel depot with two large customized shipping containers bolted to the road. Two volunteers are chained inside each container, which are covered with posters of George Bush and Esso. A second team of volunteers and "tigers" shut down the fuel supply to the petrol tankers before occupying various parts of the site.
“Esso, the richest company in the world, is using all its power and might to make sure the planet fries while it keeps making money. Because of Esso, Bush has stuck two fingers up to the world and is refusing to abide by the Kyoto global warming treaty. Bush does what Esso tells him. To get the US, the world’s biggest polluter to sign up to Kyoto, we have to stop companies like Esso,” said Sawyer.
In the North Sea, 40 kilometers off the Dutch coast, Greenpeace installed a 15 meter high wind turbine, on top of 36 meter pylon. The turbine will be anchored to the bottom of the sea. In just a few days time, this site was to be drilled for gas, by Clyde Petroleum, a Conoco subsidiary. The placement of the wind turbine makes this impossible. The wind energy potential in the North Sea for Germany, UK, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark is more than three times the total energy consumption from these countries.
“The world does not need more climate destroying fuels like gas. To protect the climate we need clean fuels like wind, and we need them now before it’s too late,” said Sawyer.
Contact:
Steve Sawyer +31 6 53504715
Susan Cavanagh +31 6 21296910
Photo and video available:
Picture Desk – John Novis +31 653819121
Video Production – Martin Atkin +31 653504721