GREENPEACE BLOCKS US OIL DELIVERY TO PROTEST GW BUSH'S CLIMATE STANCE

10 June 2001

Le Havre, France, 11.30am CST - 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.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
Contacts on board the MV Greenpeace:
For media:
Satellite Phone +873 1300310
Mobile Phone +31 653105738
Matt Ewing, Paul Horsman(English) +44 7801 212 990
Helene Gassin (French) +33 6 73 89 23 14
Joris Thyssen (Dutch) +31 6 15093590

Greenpeace Press Desk, Susan Cavanagh +31 6 21296910

Video Production, Martin Atkin +31 627000057

See also Greenpeace climate website.