{"id":22579,"date":"2019-06-19T18:55:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-19T18:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/?p=22579"},"modified":"2019-11-06T09:47:15","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T08:47:15","slug":"breaking-greenpeace-activist-swims-in-front-of-bp-rig-in-latest-attempt-to-stop-it-reaching-drill-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/press-release\/22579\/breaking-greenpeace-activist-swims-in-front-of-bp-rig-in-latest-attempt-to-stop-it-reaching-drill-site\/","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING – Greenpeace activist swims in front of BP rig in latest attempt to stop it reaching drill site"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scotland, UK –<\/b> Greenpeace International activists made the latest attempt to prevent an oil rig operated by BP from reaching a major new drilling site in the North Sea, today.<\/span><\/p>\n

Early this morning, an experienced Greenpeace International swimmer from the Greenpeace ship, the Arctic Sunrise<\/span>, <\/span><\/i>swam in the cold waters of the North Sea, putting herself between the drill site and the 27,000-tonne rig, trying to prevent it from anchoring.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite being informed of the swimmer\u2019s presence in the water, the rig continued on its course coming within one nautical mile of the swimmer, at which point the swimmer was taken out of the water and brought back to safety.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Arctic Sunrise remains in the vicinity of the rig, which has reached its destination, bearing witness to BP\u2019s plans to drill for more oil amidst a climate emergency.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Greenpeace action is unfolding against a backdrop of severe weather events all around the world. Over the last few days alone, Greenland\u2019s ice sheet lost 2 billion tonnes of ice in just a single day, India was hit by a 50C heatwave, and hundreds of homes were evacuated following severe flooding in the North East of England.<\/span><\/p>\n

The rig was due to set off from Cromarty, Scotland, 11 days ago, but it was first occupied and stopped by Greenpeace UK climbers and then prevented from reaching the drill site by the <\/span>Arctic Sunrise.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Greenpeace is demanding that BP immediately end drilling new wells and switch to investing only in renewable energy. If BP does not do that, Greenpeace say, it should wind down its operations, return cash to investors and go out of business.<\/span><\/p>\n

Scientists have been clear that we already have more oil and gas than we can safely burn under the Paris climate agreement if we want to limit catastrophic climate change. Yet BP maintains its desire to both explore for more oil and expand its oil and gas production.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor 11 long days, we have used every possible peaceful means to stop BP drilling for more oil than we can\u2019t afford to burn. Each day we\u2019ve held BP off is a day we\u2019ve prevented them further fueling the climate emergency.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe impacts of that climate emergency are staring us in the face. From Greenland losing 2 billion tonnes of ice in a single day to the scorching 50C heatwave in India, we\u2019re already living in a world made more dangerous by fossil fuel giants like BP. They may be bent on business as usual but there\u2019s a movement of millions standing by to stop them,\u201d said Sarah North, the Greenpeace International climate campaigner who swam before the rig.<\/span><\/p>\n

ENDS<\/span><\/p>\n

Photo and Video regularly updated here:<\/b> https:\/\/media.greenpeace.org\/collection\/27MZIFJ82ALXR<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Contacts:<\/b><\/p>\n

Greenpeace UK news team, +44 (0)20 7865 8255, <\/span>press.uk@greenpeace.org<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 (0)20 718 2470 (available 24 hours), <\/span>pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cFor 11 long days, we have used every possible peaceful means to stop BP drilling for more oil than we can\u2019t afford to burn.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":22581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_planet4_optimize_post_is_variant":false,"_planet4_optimize_experiment_name":"","_planet4_optimize_variant_name":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[69,99],"tags":[19,87],"p4-page-type":[98],"class_list":["post-22579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","category-ships","tag-arctic-sunrise","tag-oil","p4-page-type-press-release"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22579"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23068,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22579\/revisions\/23068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22579"},{"taxonomy":"p4-page-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/p4-page-type?post=22579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}