Alstom the 'Global Warming Contractor'

Greenpeace's "Choose Positive Energy" activists in Manila dressed in business suits and snorkel gear and paraded with banners outside Alstom's head office for the Philippines. They want to remind Alstom that raised ocean levels, increased flooding, drought and coral bleaching are consequences their country will face as a result of climate change. (Coal-fired power generation is a major contributor to greenhouse gases emissions which cause climate change.)

"It is time for Alstom to meaningfully embrace viable sustainable alternatives such as solar energy and wind power," said Athena Ballesteros, Greenpeace climate campaigner in Southeast Asia.

The majority of Alstom's resources are used to produce equipment to process fossil fuels, which are responsible for climate change. Less than one percent of Alstom's resources go to developing renewable energy alternatives. This is shameful, and it makes Alstom accountable for the growing impacts of global warming across the world.

The list of Amstom's dirty-technology provisions to coal plants in the Philippines is long. It includes the notorious mercury-spewing 600-MW plant of NAPOCOR in Calaca, Batangas, a 203-MW coal plant in Naga, Cebu and the 1200-MW coal burning behemoth of Sual, Pangasinan.

Alstom is also a major supplier of the highly controversial and corruption-tainted Three Gorges Dam of China. With estimated gross earnings of about 23 billion Euros last year, Alstom is one of the major players in the global energy market.

Greenpeace energy campaigner Red Constantino said, "Alstom should play the role of renewable energy leader in countries like the Philippines instead of pushing for large-scale polluting power plants. We welcome renewable energy investments but we reject the expansion of coal investments."

One such investment is the proposed 50-MW coal plant at Pulupandan, in the Philippine province of Negros Occidental. Despite the cancellation of the project's environmental permit and the freeze of its investment registration papers, Alstom continues to insist on joining the project. The province of Negros Occidental has vast renewable energy resources. Commercially viable wind power from one site alone in Negros carries a 180-MW potential capacity.

Greenpeace today announced that its ship MV Arctic Sunrise will arrive in the Philippines on July 17, on the southern leg of the Choose Positive Energy tour. The ship will visit the Philippines and Thailand, where communities are rejecting the dirty energy technology of coal fired power stations, and demanding clean renewable energy fill the growing demand. The Greenpeace flagship, the Rainbow Warrior, is presently campaigning in the North Sea against nuclear and fossil fuel energy on the northern leg of the Choose Positive Energy Tour.

The Choose Positive Energy Tour is part of Greenpeace's countdown to the Johannesburg Earth Summit.

For more information

'Edison out', a Greenpeace report on another company's attempt to take dirty coal-fired energy to Thailand.