Canadian Greenpeace activists helping to occupy 4 Italian coal-fired power stations, demanding G8 climate leadership

Press release - July 7, 2009

Two activists from Canada are involved in a Greenpeace action at the Fusina coal plant Marghera, near Venice Italy, as part of a major action to draw attention to coal and climate issues at the G8 summit.

Dexter Perera of Montreal, is 150 metres in the air on the chimney atthe plant and Earl Beadle from Toronto is helping to hang a Greenpeacebanner from the plant's conveyor belt.

The Greenpeace action against the coal plants began as the leaders ofthe world's most powerful nations arrived at the G8 Summit today. Morethan 100 Greenpeace activists from around the world have occupied fourcoal-fired power stations across Italy, demanding the G8 Heads of Statetake leadership on climate change.

View the live feed of updates from these actions

In the early hours of this morning, the activists, from 18countries, occupied coal conveyors and climbed smokestacks and craneson the four power stations in Brindisi, Marghera (just outside ofVenice), at Vado Ligure, (near Genoa) and at an old oil plant at PortoTolle, (set to be re-opened as an experimental so-called "clean coal"power plant.) Coal is the worst climate pollutant of all fossil fuels.

The Brindisi plant is Italy's biggest coal-fired power station and thecountry's largest single source of C02 emissions. Greenpeace plans tostop it from polluting by blocking the coal conveyor belts andpreventing coal from going into the plant.

"Politicians talk but leaders act" said UK activist Ben Stewart fromthe top of the 160m high chimney at the Marghera plant. "There is nomore time to waste. The G8 leaders must stop putting the interests ofbig coal and other climate polluting industries ahead of the planet andtake strong, decisive leadership on climate change. That means deepcuts in emissions by 2020, investing in adaption and mitigation in thedeveloping world and halting tropical deforestation."

Stewart is one of the Kingsnorth Six climate activists who were acquitted of criminal damage after painting the chimney there.

Greenpeace has established the urgent criteria that G8 leaders must agree to:

keep global temperature rise as far below a 2°C increase as possible, compared to pre-industrial levels, to avert catastrophic climate change.
ensure that global emissions peak by 2015 and be as close to zero as possible by 2050;
commit, as a group, to cut emissions by at least 40% by 2020, on 1990 levels;
invest US$106 billion (€74 billion) of the US$140 billion needed annually for developing countries to adapt to and take action on climate change and to finance forest protection;
immediately commit to the establishment of a funding mechanism to stop deforestation and associated emissions in all developing countries by 2020, and achieve zero deforestation in the Amazon, Congo Basin and Indonesia by 2015.

"The G8 heads of state must break the deadlock in the climatenegotiations and stop blaming developing countries for their owninadequate climate policies. This is an opportunity for them to takepersonal responsibility and show that they are real leaders - who act -and not just politicians full of hot air," said Phil Radford,Greenpeace US Executive Director, from the L'Aquila meeting.

"If the rest of the G8 descends to President Obama's stated goal ofreturning emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 then our children willinherit a world of droughts, famines and the climate catastrophescientists are warning us about."

Details of activities and the coal plants:

Nationalities: UK, US, Japan, Germany, France, Canada, Italy, Brazil,Finland, Israel, Turkey, Greece, Poland, Philippines, Czech Republic,Slovakia, Hungary, Spain (not all are available to speak to the media).

1. Fusina plant, Marghera (near Venice) - 5 activists have occupiedthe coal conveyor of this coal plant. A further 15 climbers haveoccupied the chimney and nearby cranes and have hung a banner on thechimney saying "G8: TAKE CLIMATE LEADERSHIP" and another saying 'ENERGYREVOLUTION = GREEN JOBS". UK Activist Ben Stewart is on the chimneyand available for interviews (contact Jo Kuper)

2. Brindisi, Southern Italy - 6 activists have occupied the coalconveyor of the biggest, most CO2 polluting coal fired power plant inItaly to force it to stop polluting. More than 14 million tonnes of CO2pollution a year comes out of its chimney - more than the combinedemissions of the world's 40 least polluting countries. Another 7climbers have scaled the chimney. Australian climate campaigner, JulienVincent, is one of the climbers and is available for interviews.

3. Porto Tolle, Northern Italy: 6 climbers have scaled the chimney(Italy's second highest) of this old oil-fired power plant that isbeing converted to coal. When the plant re-opens, the plant will emitmore than 10 million tonnes of CO2. Under the Kyoto Protocol, Italyneeds to cut 100 million tonnes of CO2 not increase CO2 pollution. TheItalian Government plans to re-open this plant as a so-called "cleancoal" plant by applying an experimental technology called carboncapture and storage. To date, no large-scale coal fired power plant isequipped with this technology and experts say it will take at least tenmore years to become operational.

4. Savona, Vado Ligure (near Genoa): 11 climbers have scaled bothchimneys, hanging a banner saying "TIME TO LEAD ON CLIMATE" off one,and camping on the top of the other.

Meanwhile, the Greenpeace ships around the world are documenting theimpacts of climate change already being felt. The Arctic Sunrise is inthe Arctic, as the ice cap is melting at a near-record rate, a starkreminder that the impacts of climate change are already taking place.The Esperanza is in the Pacific, where people on the 1m high islandnation of Tuvalu are now in the process of working out where they willmove to when sea levels rise.

Greenpeace International story on the action

Greenpeace Canada contact:

Alex Paterson, Media and Public Relations officer, (416) 524-8496

Greenpeace International contacts:

PHOTO: John Novis - +44 7801 615 889