German Utility Sues GP-Climate Conference

[The.Greenbase@gb.greenpeace.org]

>> GERMAN UTILITY RWE SUES GREENPEACE AMID NEW SIGNS OF CLIMATE


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                    GREENPEACE PRESS RELEASE
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>> GERMAN UTILITY RWE SUES GREENPEACE AMID NEW SIGNS OF CLIMATE
CHANGE ...but climbers say RWE should be sued for killing the
climate
  
Frimmersdorf/Berlin, 30 March 1995 (GP) As delegates at the
Climate Conference in Berlin fight over wording, German Utility
RWE is suing Greenpeace's three activists who are still on the
company's C02 producing smokestack near Cologne, on grounds of
disturbance of the peace and security. 
 
Meanwhile Greenpeace in Berlin released yet more evidence that
climate change may already be here -- a report showing that there
has been an increase in rain and flooding in Europe and the
United States which is entirely consistent with global warming -
and we are likely to get more of it if C02 emissions are not
reduced. 
 
"Not us but RWE should be sued - for its breach of the future
security of the global climate," said activist Dan R. from the
USA. "Given that my country has suffered terrible floods in the
past two years, and this new report says we will see more of
them, we demand that RWE starts talks with Greenpeace about its
energy policy here at the action site at Frimmersdorf."
 
The climbers will stay on the 193m high smokestack of the brown
coal power plant until the end of the Climate Conference on April
7, to draw attention to power stations worldwide as a major
source of climate killer carbon dioxide (CO2).
 
Observations of records around the world show a general increase
in rainfall which is what climate models projected, says the
report "Climate Change and River Flooding", written for
Greenpeace by Professor Pier Vellinga of Amsterdam Free
University.  The flooding report, using existing climate data and
computer modelling, finds evidence that increases in rain and
river flow, consistent with global warming, have already
occurred.
 
Northern Europe is likely to experience a 10-20% increase in
rainfall during winter months by 2070.  Indeed, in Bavaria in
southern Germany, rainfall increased by 40% between 1960 and
1990. But while Northern Europe can expect more floods, arid
areas, such as Southern Europe and North Africa, will probably
experience a decrease in rainfall, the report says. The amount of
rainfall in Canada and the USA has increased by 7.6% from 1891 to
1990 and one study from 14 stations in Germany showed that runoff
from rainfall was 26% higher after 1964 than before, it says.
 
"The prospect of wetter winters and increased flood damage is
already sending ripples through the insurance industry.  The
industrialised world must agree to serious reductions in CO2 to
avoid the financial and human costs of increased flooding," said
Bill Hare, head of Greenpeace International's delegation in
Berlin. "Yet the Climate Summit is still not moving towards
serious consideration of the Alliance of Small Island States'
Protocol which proposes
industrialised country C02 cuts of 20% by 2005. Here we see
another sign that climate change has already arrived," he said.
 
For information please call Greenpeace Press Officers Cindy
Baxter or Fouad Hamdan at the Berlin Climate Summit on: ++49 30
304 1432 or 304 1433; Action site ++49 172 381 8142 and you can
talk to the climbers. Greenpeace on the Internet:
http://www.greenpeace.org/or
http://www.cyberstore.ca/greenpeace/climate/html