Press Release: Summer of Global Protest
Thanks to the kids at Climate Camp for this…
Protestors halt coal train at Newcastle, AU.
A summer of global climate protest: First of five global Climate Camps starts in Australia
Coal train and world’s largest coal port peacefully blockaded
London, 14 July 2008
For Immediate Release
As the G8 leaders fail to achieve any meaningful agreement on tackling
climate change, thousands of activists from Britain to Australia are
spearheading a radical approach to the issue. Inspired by previous Camps
for Climate Action at Drax and Heathrow, six “Climate Camps” are taking
place across the world throughout July and August in what is dubbed “the
Convergence for Climate Action”.
In the last few days the first camp was established at Newcastle,
Australia. Yesterday, people from the camp chained themselves to a
coal train, blocking access to Carrington coal terminal for most of the
day and costing the company an estimated 1.2 million US dollars.
Today, more climate camp activists are blocking work at the world’s
largest coal port at Kooragang.
The events in Australia will be followed by camps in Germany, the UK
and three across North America into late August. Each camp has the same
messages of education on climate change and direct action against some of
the major polluters and other climate criminals. Coal is a strong theme,
featuring as the principle target in a number of countries.
“We are running out of time,” said Lizbeth Halloran from Australia, where
hundreds of people have already gathered. “The G8 are making pitiful
noises and insulting our intelligence with their so-called targets. With
world leaders so clearly the puppets of the corporate profit motive, it is
ordinary people who have to put the brakes on climate change when nobody
else will.”
The camps share the same four key objectives: show sustainable
alternatives in action, share skills and knowledge, build a grassroots
movement against the root causes of climate change, and take direct
action, which is seen as a proportionate and necessary response to the
scale of the problem. There is also a recognition that there needs to be a
‘just transition’ to bring about an environmentally and socially
responsible society.
“Two years ago we started off as six hundred people in a field in
Yorkshire, but it sparked something massive worldwide,” stated Connor
O’Brien, a spokesperson from the UK’s Camp for Climate Action. “Now we
know that whatever we achieve in our local struggles this summer, they are
amplified by the achievements of the five other climate camps around the
world, the many more planned for next summer, and the year-round global
social movement that is both resisting runaway climate change caused by
the pursuit of economic growth at all costs, and building pathways to a
sustainable future.”
The camps bring together diverse elements of the anti-globalisation,
social justice and environmental movements, united by the recognition that
governments and corporations are part of the problem and therefore cannot
be part of the solution. As well as taking direct action against some of
the root causes, they seek to promote sustainable solutions to the
challenge of climate change.
From the gang at Climate Camp… see http://www.climatecamp.org.uk
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