Berlin Climate Summit:C02-Coal Protest

[The.Greenbase@gb.greenpeace.org]

>> GREENPEACE SCALES CHIMNEY OF COALFIRED C02 FACTORY


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                    GREENPEACE PRESS RELEASE
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>> GREENPEACE SCALES CHIMNEY OF COALFIRED C02 FACTORY
 
FRIMMERSDORF, Western Germany 27 March 1995 (GP) On the day
before the start of the Berlin Climate Summit 20 Greenpeace
activists climbed the 190m high chimney of one of Germany's most
polluting coalfired power stations, the RWE brown coal power
plant in Frimmersdorf, near Cologne, Germany.  
 
At least three of the activists (two German, one American) plan
to stay on the chimney throughout the entire two weeks of the
Climate Summit, as a constant reminder to delegates gathered in
Berlin of the real source of the problem of climate change: C02. 
 
A total of 80 Greenpeace people are at the site. While stormy
conditions this morning prevent the hanging of a banner to send a
message to delegates: "Stop C02, Go Solar!", they expect to this
to go up later today.
 
"While the climate diplomats from all over the world are talking
in Berlin, we are pointing to the source of most C02:  from the
chimneys of the coal, oil and gas-fired power plants of
industrialised countries," said Bill Hare of Greenpeace
International in Berlin. 
 
The RWE chimney has been chosen by Greenpeace to represent all
the smokestacks of these global warming factories in the 
industrialised world which emit C02 and damage the climate.  The
industrialised countries are responsible for 75% of all C02
emissions worldwide. Coal is the largest source of C02 emissions,
and brown coal is the dirtiest of all.   
 
We are now seeing the surest ever signs of climate change.  A 40
mile (65km) crack has appeared in the Larsen Ice Shelf in the
Antarctic, which scientists say has not happened for the past
20,000 years and is due to a warming of 2.5 degrees.  In the face
of this evidence, Greenpeace demands the delegates in Berlin to
adopt a Protocol which will commit these countries to cut C02 20%
by 2005 at 1990 emission levels.
 
On the RWE site are 14 old brown-coal powered generators with a
total production capacity of 12 billion kilowatt hours a yr. 
This 2000MW site alone pours 14 million tonnes of C02 into the
atmosphere every year.  The total annual emissions from RWE
stations around Germany amounts to more than 120 million tonnes
of C02.  
 
This German electricity utility plans to open a new brown coal
mine, Garzweiler II, and plans to invest 20billion DM (USD 13
billion) in the so-called "modernisation" of its coal fired power
plants.  
 
"RWE, like many of its counterparts around the world, is making
the wrong investment and the German government is allowing it to
do so.  This money should be going directly into energy
efficiency and alternative technologies such as solar or wind
energy," said Hare. 
 
ENDS
 
For information:  Greenpeace action team in Frimmersdorf: 
++49 172 381 8142; in Berlin: ++49 30 304 1432/3 Fouad
Hamdan/Cindy Baxter.