The Rainbow Warrior in action against coal in Australia.
In Germany, the most polluting coal plant in Europe provided the
platform for a simple message: "CO2 Kills." The owner of the
plant is planning ten new brown-coal power units, one of which
together with the plant we've occupied will emit more CO2 than the
entire nation of New Zealand. Twenty Greenpeace activists occupied
the stack for two days.
In Montreal, 181 countries are meeting to determine what the
world is going to do about global warming. A key issue at the
summit is how other countries will deal with strong pressure from
the US to ignore climate change. Our message to the delegates?
Ignore the US administration. Take action.
In Canada, the United States, Japan, Germany, France,
Bangladesh, Brazil, Australia and South Africa, people took to the
streets on Saturday to demand just that. 7,000 marched on Montreal
alone. Five environmental groups including Greenpeace delivered a
petition signed by 600,000 Americans to the US consulate in
Montreal, calling upon President Bush and the US Congress to help
slow global warming.
In the UK, Greenpeace activists made clear that the government
won't be able to build more dirty nuclear power plants without a
fight, as they
occupied the room in which Tony Blair planned to outline a review
of the UK's energy future.
In France, Greenpeace
blocked a shipment of nuclear waste bound for Russia in an
action illustrating one more reason why nuclear power is not a
solution to climate change. The waste is currently in transit along
more than a dozen European coastlines, a terrorist target and a
telling reminder that nobody knows what to do with nuclear
waste.
And today in Thailand, the latest stop on the Rainbow Warrior's
South East Asian Energy Revolution campaign was one of Asia's
largest coal-fired power plants. Activists climbed the loading
crane of the BLCP coal plant at Map Ta Phut in Thailand and
unfurled banners demanding the plant's immediate closure, calling
on the Thai government to phase out coal power and to commit to
renewable energy.
Greenpeace activists from Thailand, the Philippines and the
United States set up camp outside the main gate of the plant to
protest the Thai government's plans to open 18 more dirty power
plants in the next decade.
"Coal is the main cause of climate change in Thailand and
Southeast Asia. Greenpeace demands that construction on this site
be stopped and a thorough review of the Thai Government's
coal-driven energy plan be undertaken immediately," said Greenpeace
Southeast Asia spokesperson Tara Buakamsri from the camp. "We will
stay here until our demands are met."
When it comes to climate change, Asia is a place of particular
opportunity and threat.
Climate change is causing severe hardship in Thailand and across
the Southeast Asia region, and according to Tara, "Plants like
BLCP are the main culprits."
Catastrophic droughts across Thailand this year cost the
country US $193 million and untold human suffering. The Thai
government has set a target of delivering 8% of its energy from
renewables by 2011, a goal which we don't believe the government
can meet if it continues to divert funding from renewables into
coal.
Renewables can provide 35 percent of Thailand's energy supply by
2020; there already exists enough biomass to power 25 percent of
the country's electricity needs.
"Climate change is a reality but so too are the solutions," said
Jean-Francois Fauconnier of Greenpeace International aboard the
Rainbow Warrior. "Wind, solar and modern biomass power are
already big business not only in Europe but also in China. The
potential in Thailand is equally huge.
"International financial institutions like the Asian Development
Bank and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation should stop
financing coal. They continuously talk up their support for
renewables yet we've seen very little in the way of funds being
re-directed towards those energies. It's time for less talk and
more action."
Greenpeace's flagship the Rainbow Warrior is in Bangkok on the
Thailand leg of its 10-week Asia Energy Revolution Tour, exposing
the impacts of climate change and promoting the uptake of renewable
energy like wind and biomass. The tour started in Australia and
will end in Thailand.
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