The Arctic 18 have now been in a Greenland jail for 5 days after being arrested for boarding the Cairn oil rig here in the Arctic looking for its elusive oil spill response plan.

Today the Dutch court granted the injunction against Greenpeace sought by Cairn Energy. This ruling means we’ll now be liable for substantial fines if we take any further action that stops Cairn drilling for oil here in the Arctic.

We’d have to pay 50k Euros if we go within 500 meters of either of Cairn’s rigs in the Arctic. However, this is far less than the 2 million Cairn asked for and it’s capped at 1 million Euros in total.

We’re now considering what we do next but one thing’s for sure, Cairn can hire all the lawyers in the world, but they won’t stop our campaign to kick the oil companies out of the Arctic. This will be one of the defining environmental battles of our age, and it’s one we’re going to win.

Neither will it stop us demanding that the missing oil spill clean-up plan is made public. They’re clearly keeping it hidden because it proves what the experts have been saying all along. It is not possible to clean up an oil spill in the Arctic.

This is only one of many reasons Arctic oil drilling should not happen.

Oil companies are only looking to move into the Arctic because global warming has caused the ice cap to melt. The retreating ice caps should be seen as a marker on the path to a future where we are no longer dependent on fossil fuels - not as an invitation to extract more oil.

You can take action to support our campaign by sending an email to Cairn CEO Bill Gammell.

 

Photo (C) GREENPEACE / MORGAN