… In a tense moment during the meeting, which had already been delayed for nearly an hour, security stepped in to prevent a protester from reaching chairman Sir Andrew Mackenzie and other board members on the stage.
Dozens of protesters were escorted out by members of the security team at London’s Excel conference centre.
“Obviously that last incident went a stage further than we experienced in the first part of today,” Mackenzie said, after protesters had been escorted out.
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Early in the meeting, a group of protesters sang, “Go to hell Shell and don’t you come back no more, no more, no more, no more,” to the tune of the Ray Charles song Hit the Road Jack.
The first protester to get up shouted: “Welcome to Shell… complicit in the destruction of people’s homes, livelihoods and lives. Welcome to hell.”
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UPDATE: Climate protesters attempt to storm the stage of Shell AGM!!!
Activists with masks of Group of Seven leaders protest fossil fuels. (Photo: 350.org Japan/Friends of the Earth Japan/Oil Change International)
“Energy security can only be achieved by rapidly and equitably phasing out fossil fuels and transitioning to renewable energy, not locking in deadly fossil fuels and lining the pockets of oil and gas executives,” said one critic.
Since Group of Seven leaders on Saturday put out a wide-ranging communiqué from a Japan-hosted summit in Hiroshima, climate action advocates from G7 countries and beyond have blasted the statement’s support for future investments in planet-heating gas.
The statement comes after G7 climate, energy, and environment ministers were criticized for their communiqué from a meeting in Sapporo last month as well as protests around the world this week pressuring the summit’s attendees to ditch fossil fuels and “deliver a clear and just renewable energy agenda for a peaceful world.”
To meet the 1.5°C goal of the Paris climate agreement, the new statement commits to “accelerate the phaseout of unabated fossil fuels so as to achieve net-zero in energy systems by 2050 at the latest” along with “the elimination of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies by 2025 or sooner.”
“The G7 must stop using fossil fuels immediately—the planet is on fire.”
The statement also highlights that last year, G7 nations—Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States—pledged to end “new direct public support for the international unabated fossil fuel energy sector, except in limited circumstances,” though as recent analysis shows, some are breaking that promise.
The communiqué then endorses liquefied natural gas (LNG) as a solution to “the global impact of Russia’s war on energy supplies, gas prices and inflation, and people’s lives,” referencing the invasion of Ukraine:
In this context, we stress the important role that increased deliveries of LNG can play, and acknowledge that investment in the sector can be appropriate in response to the current crisis and to address potential gas market shortfalls provoked by the crisis. In the exceptional circumstance of accelerating the phaseout of our dependency on Russian energy, publicly supported investment in the gas sector can be appropriate as a temporary response, subject to clearly defined national circumstances, if implemented in a manner consistent with our climate objectives without creating lock-in effects, for example by ensuring that projects are integrated into national strategies for the development of low-carbon and renewable hydrogen.
“The G7 energy outcome correctly diagnoses a short-term need for energy security, then promotes a dangerous and inappropriate lock-in of fossil gas that would do nothing to address this need,” responded Collin Rees, United States program manager at Oil Change International (OCI). “Energy security can only be achieved by rapidly and equitably phasing out fossil fuels and transitioning to renewable energy, not locking in deadly fossil fuels and lining the pockets of oil and gas executives.”
After accusing the summit’s attendees of “using the war as an excuse,” deflecting blame for current conditions, and neglecting Global South countries disproportionately suffering from the climate crisis, Max Lawson, head of inequality policy at Oxfam, declared that “the G7 must stop using fossil fuels immediately—the planet is on fire.”
Greenpeace International global climate politics expert Tracy Carty also demanded a swift end to fossil fuels, charging that “G7 leaders’ endorsement of new fossil gas is a blunt denial of the climate emergency” which dooms “current and future generations.”
Gerry Arances, executive director of the Philippine Center for Energy, Ecology, and Development, similarly argued that “the endorsement of increased LNG deliveries and investment in gas in the G7 communiqué is no mere backsliding—it is a death sentence being dealt by the G7 to the 1.5°C limit and, in consequence, to the climate survival of vulnerable peoples in the Philippines, Southeast Asia, and across the world.”
“Unless they genuinely put forward the phaseout of all fossil fuels, Japan and all G7 nations spout nothing but lies when they say they have aligned to 1.5°C,” he continued. “They cannot claim to be promoting development while subjecting our people to decades more of pollution and soaring energy prices. We reject this notion of a development powered by fossil fuels.”
Looking to the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) planned for later this year, Arances added that “Japan and G7 leaders should already be warned that civic movements will not tire in pushing back against fossil fuels and false solutions and in demanding a renewable energy transition.”
“Civic movements will not tire in pushing back against fossil fuels and false solutions and in demanding a renewable energy transition.”
Other campaigners also specifically called out the Hiroshima summit’s host—including Ayumi Fukakusa, deputy executive director at Friends of the Earth Japan, who asserted that the country “has used the G7 presidency to derail the global energy transition.”
“Japan has been driving the push to increase gas investments and has been promoting its so-called ‘green transformation’ strategy,” Fukakusa said of a “greenwashing scheme” featuring hydrogen, ammonia, nuclear, and carbon capture and storage technologies.
OCI Asia program manager Susanne Wong agreed that given the nation’s promotion of gas expansion and technologies to prolong the use of coal, “this year’s G7 is revealing Japan’s failure of climate leadership at a global level.”
“Activists mobilized 50 actions across 22 countries this week to demand that Japan end its fossil fuel finance and stop driving the expansion of gas and other fossil-based technologies,” Wong added. “Japan will continue to face intense international scrutiny until it stops fueling the climate crisis.”
Shame on Canada & other #G7 leaders for caving to the narrow financial interests of fossil gas companies
The world is burning and our leaders keep dumping more fuel on the fire https://t.co/j2aPHx24AB
Groups from other G7 countries also called out their political leaders. Petter Lydén, head of international climate policy at Germanwatch, said, “Most likely, the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has been a driving force behind the weak language on gas, which is a serious blow to Germany’s international credibility on climate.”
Citing sources familiar with summit negotiations, The New York Timesreported Saturday that “Britain and France fought the German effort” while U.S. President Joe Biden was caught between defending his climate agenda and “aiding other United States allies intent on increasing their access to fossil fuels.”
OCI’s Rees said the that “this betrayal continues a disturbing turn by President Biden and Chancellor Scholz from rhetorically committing to climate leadership to openly boosting fossil fuel expansion. History will not look kindly on world leaders who accelerate the pace of fossil fuel buildout in the face of worsening climate crisis.”
Between two and three hundred protesters will join a seven-day march from Arnhem to The Hague, organised by Extinction Rebellion. They will start on Sunday and walk along the A12. The march ends on 27 May, the day the group plans to block the A12 in The Hague again to protest against government subsidies to the fossil industry.
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It is the seventh time that Extinction Rebellion is planning to block the A12. At the last demonstration on 11 March, some 700 activists were eventually detained.
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Video of March 2023 protest.
During a demonstration by Extinction Rebellion on the A12 in The Hague a symphony orchestra played the second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony no.7. By doing so, the orchestra supported the demand of XR to stop the yearly 17.5 billion in fossil fuel subsidies by the Dutch government. The musicians are convinced that the beauty of music and of people connecting through music will also disappear if the climate crisis exacerbates.
At the moment the orchestra entered the road, police began to demand the protesters to leave or face arrest. Threatened by the deployment of water cannons, the orchestra decided to play anyway, which seemed to have a de-escalating effect. With this action the orchestra showed in a democratic way that beauty is tarnished.
Violinist Vera Beths : “Nature is a great source of inspiration for composers. You can find everything in it; harmony, dissonance, rhythm and form. We are in the process of disturbing this balance systematically. That has to stop. We have to start listening again.”
The world is almost certain to experience new record temperatures in the next five years, and temperatures are likely to rise by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, scientists have warned.
The breaching of the crucial 1.5C threshold, which scientists have warned could have dire consequences, should be only temporary, according to research from the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).
However, it would represent a marked acceleration of human impacts on the global climate system, and send the world into “uncharted territory”, the UN agency warned.
Countries have pledged, under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, to try to hold global temperatures to no higher than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, after scientific advice that heating beyond that level would unleash a cascade of increasingly catastrophic and potentially irreversible impacts.
Prof Petteri Taalas, the secretary general of the WMO, said: “This report does not mean that we will permanently exceed the 1.5C specified in the Paris agreement, which refers to long-term warming over many years. However, WMO is sounding the alarm that we will breach the 1.5C level on a temporary basis with increasing frequency.”
Global average surface temperatures have never before breached the 1.5C threshold. The highest average in previous years was 1.28C above pre-industrial levels.
14.11.22_XR Docs_City of London Mags_Helena Smith_7224
“The Supreme Court’s decision brings the people of Delaware and Hoboken one step closer to putting these polluters on trial and making them pay for their climate deception.”
On the heels of similar decisions last month, the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday delivered “another win for climate accountability,” rejecting fossil fuel corporations’ attempt to quash lawsuits filed by the city of Hoboken, New Jersey, and the state of Delaware.
Both filed in September 2020, the suits from Hoboken and Delaware—like those filed by dozens of other municipalities and states—take aim at companies including BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell for fueling the climate emergency. The fossil fuel industry has repeatedly tried to evade accountability by shifting such cases from state to federal court.
“We appreciate and agree with the court’s order denying the fossil fuel companies’ petition, which aligns with dozens of decisions in federal courts here in Delaware and across the country,” said Democratic Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings in response to Monday’s decision.
The Supreme Court’s decision means that both of these cases will now move forward in state court.
Jennings on Monday cited an opinion piece she wrote for Delaware Online with Shawn Garvin, secretary of the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, back when they launched the legal effort in 2020:
As we stated at the time of filing this case almost three years ago: “It didn’t have to be this way. The fossil fuel industry knew for decades that their products would lead to climate change with potentially ‘severe’ and even ‘catastrophic’ consequences—their words, not ours. But they didn’t clean up their practices or warn anyone to minimize the peril they were creating. Instead, they spent decades deliberately and systematically deceiving the nation about what they knew would happen if they carried on with business as usual.”
Building on revelations from the past decade that have bolstered climate liability lawsuits, peer-reviewed research published in January shows that ExxonMobil accurately predicted global heating decades ago, while documents released in early April make clear that Shell knew about the impact of fossil fuels even earlier than previously thought.
“Imagine how far along we might be in the transition to a low-carbon economy today if not for their deception,” Jennings said. “That’s why we filed our lawsuit, and today’s order moves Delawareans one step closer to the justice and economic relief that we deserve.”
For Hoboken and Delaware, the high court denied fossil fuel companies’ challenge to decision last year from a panel at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, which wrote in part that “our federal system trusts state courts to hear most cases—even big, important ones that raise federal defenses. Plaintiffs choose which claims to file, in which court, and under which law. Defendants may prefer federal court, but they may not remove their cases to federal court unless federal laws let them. Here, they do not.”
Center for Climate Integrity president Richard Wiles noted Monday that “Big Oil companies keep fighting to avoid trials in state courts, where they will be forced to defend their record of climate lies and destruction in front of juries, but federal courts at every level keep rejecting their efforts.”
“The Supreme Court’s decision brings the people of Delaware and Hoboken one step closer to putting these polluters on trial and making them pay for their climate deception,” Wiles added. “Fossil fuel companies must be held accountable for the damages they knowingly caused.”
After the high court’s April decisions—which involved cases brought by the state of Rhode Island as well as municipalities across California, Colorado, Hawaii, and Maryland—Jamie Henn of Fossil Free Media said, “This should open the floodgates for more lawsuits that could make polluters pay!”
There were no noted dissensions on Monday. However, like last month, Justice Samuel Alito, who owns stock in some fossil fuel companies, did not participate in the decision about these two cases—but Justice Amy Coney Barrett, whose father spent nearly three decades as an attorney for Shell, did.
