Activists from Fossil Free London outside the InterContinental in central London, demonstrate ahead of the Energy Intelligence Forum, a gathering between Shell, Total, Equinor, Saudi Aramco, and other oil giants, October 17, 2023
CAMPAIGNERS have branded Shell CEO’s multimillion pay packet a “bitter pill to swallow” after the corporation announced today it would be watering down its climate pledges.
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It also revealed that CEO Wael Sawan pocketed £7.94 million in pay in 2023.
Since taking charge last year, the executive oversaw plans to axe 25 per cent of Shell’s low-carbon solutions team and abandoned a policy to cut oil production each year for the rest of the decade.
Greenpeace campaigner Philip Evans took aim at the new boss, saying he has “doubled down on fossil fuels while ruthlessly slashing jobs and investment from Shell’s renewables division — and personally pocketed a tidy £8m for his trouble.”
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Global Witness campaigner Jonathan Noronha-Gant said Mr Sawan’s payout “is a bitter pill to swallow” for the millions struggling with energy costs.
He said: “Our reliance on Shell’s dirty oil and gas make them rich whilst the rest of us get poorer.”
Image of InBedWithBigOil by Not Here To Be Liked + Hex Prints from Just Stop Oil’s You May Find Yourself… art auction. Featuring Rishi Sunak, Fossil Fuels and Rupert Murdoch.
Extinction Rebellion occupy Lloyds of London insurance companies 18 October 2023.
Ten City of London insurance companies are targeted by activists calling on them to stop insuring West Cumbia coalmine and East Africa Crude Oil PipelineNOW!
Hundreds of protesters occupied City of London offices of ten Lloyd’s of London insurers demanding they rule out insuring the proposed West Cumbria coal mine and the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP).
The occupations started as a huge crowd gathered outside Standard Bank. The protests are in collaboration with Fossil Free London’s “Oily Money Out” mass action – at which Greta Thunberg was arrested yesterday – and in solidarity with Extinction Rebellion Gauteng in South Africa. In Johannesburg activists were recently met with brutality by security personnel hired by Standard Bank as they peacefully called for dialogue to end the financing of new coal projects.
The protesters marched waving banners saying “Don’t Insure EACOP” and “Don’t Insure West Cumbria Mine” to three high profile buildings including the “Walkie Talkie” where in a coordinated swoop, activists occupied the office foyers of Ascot, Talbot, Chaucer, Markel, Allied World, CNA Hardy, Tokio Marine Kiln, Sirius International and Lancashire Syndicates. The activists are staging a sit-in and refusing to leave.
Insurers from Lloyd’s of London have come under increasing pressure to rule out offering insurance to both the West Cumbria coal mine and EACOP, including protests at offices across the UK with hundreds of students entering the job market refusing to work for them.
Claude Fourcroy, a spokesperson for Money Rebellion said: “We are calling on all the banks and insurers behind the West Cumbria mine and East Africa Crude Oil Pipelines to cut their ties now. Both of these projects will fuel climate breakdown. Lloyd’s of London and the insurers in its market sit at the centre of a web of climate wreckers in the City of London, alongside Barclays and HSBC.”
Community members from Cumbria and Uganda joined the protests, sharing the united call to insurers and banks to stop underwriting fossil fuel projects. The UK Climate Change Committee warned that the West Cumbria Mine would increase UK’s domestic emissions and make the government’s legally-binding domestic emissions budgets difficult to meet.
The massive 1443 km East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline will wreak havoc on communities, jeopardise ecosystems and water supplies. and eliminate the possibility of Earth remaining habitable. There can be no new fossil fuels anywhere if global heating is to remain under 1.5C.
Scientists say we are dangerously close to crossing the globally agreed threshold of 1.5C this year. Neither project will proceed without financial and insurance backing.
Andrew Taylor, Coal Action Network said: “West Cumbria Mining Ltd wants to dig coal here right up until 2049 – when we’re supposed to have reached net zero by 2050! They’re not looking at the impact of how burning it would damage the climate and nature. The UK government talks about us having energy security but the truth is, if the mine goes ahead, 85% of the coal would be exported.”
Patience, a youth activist from Fridays for Future Uganda said: “We have gathered here today to demand that insurers cut ties with EACOP. By supporting this deadly fossil fuel project they undermine any climate commitments they have made. People in Uganda are facing human rights violations in the name of this project. This has to end.”
Fossil Free London is simultaneously disrupting the Canary Wharf offices of Total Energies, a majority shareholder in EACOP.
The protests come on the second day of the Fossil Free London “Oily Money Out” protests targeting the Energy Intelligence Forum at the InterContinental Park Lane Hotel in London, where fossil fuel corporations, including Shell, Total and Equinor, are talking to government ministers. The Forum is taking place in the run up to the COP28 Climate Conference, which has already been captured by the fossil fuel industry, with the appointment of Al Jaber, chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) as the COP28 President.
Banner reads Oily Money Out. Protests London 18 October 2023.
Joanna Warrington, campaigner with Fossil Free London said: “We can’t allow London to welcome the climate-wrecking elite when droughts, floods, and wildfires rage across the world. London’s banks and finance sector have been ignoring all the warning signs while pouring billions into fossil fuel expansion. Their profit is our loss. Financing new fossil fuel developments is incompatible with a safe future.”
CLIMATE activist Greta Thunberg was arrested along with 20 other protesters outside a central London hotel today in an action to disrupt the Energy Intelligence Forum.
The InterContinental London hotel near Hyde Park was hosting the heads of major oil and gas companies at the event.
Fossil Free London, which organised the protest, hit out at the companies for deliberately slowing the global energy transition to renewables in order to make more profits.
The group highlighted how this year’s United Nations climate conference president is also the chief executive of an oil company.
Dozens of protesters blocked Hamilton Place at both ends with banners and pink umbrellas with eyes painted on, chanting: “Oily money out” and “Cancel the conference.”
Greenpeace activists abseiled down from the roof of the hotel to unfurl a banner reading: “Make big oil pay.”
Fossil Free London set off flares and dropped a 15-metre banner Image: Fossil Free London
ENVIORNMENTAL activists have demanded MPs block a “reckless and absurd” climate time-bomb.
MPs returning to Parliament today were welcomed by Fossil Free London, who set off flares and dropped a 15-metre banner from the nearby bridge demanding development of the Rosebank oil field be dropped.
The decision to develop the field has been repeatedly delayed but, if granted, the licence could see oil giant Equinor benefit to the tune of £3.7 billion in tax breaks as the Tory tax giveaway to big oil — costing £10.6bn so far — continues apace.
Fossil Free London’s Joanna Warrington said: “Rishi Sunak wants to give billions of pounds of public money to a giant oil company in exchange for the climate time-bomb, which will do absolutely nothing to lower our energy bills.
In a conversation with the Daily Record, Scotland’s first minister said: “My starting position on Rosebank is I’m not convinced it should go ahead and I’ve said as much publicly, for a number of reasons.
“First and foremost, for example, the majority of Rosebank is oil as opposed to gas – that oil, of course, then gets exported.
“Any suggestion that helps us in terms of our domestic energy security, I think, doesn’t quite stack up.”
Humza Yousaf added: “Unlimited oil and gas extraction is not Scotland’s future,” when asked about the controversial Rosebank oil field.
Fossil Free London climate protestors protest Barclays sponsorship of the arts at Saddlers Wells.
A ballet performance of Romeo and Juliet at Sadlers Wells faced significant disruption on Thursday evening after climate activists stormed the stage to protest the theatre’s Barclays sponsorship.
Five member of the campaign organisation Fossil Free London hijacked the stage after the interval holding a banner that read “Drop Barclays Sponsorship”, whilst two others held placards and chanted “oily money out” from the wings.
Sadlers Wells includes Barclays bank as one of its sponsors. Barclays has continued to fund new oil and gas projects, investing over $190 billion in fossil fuels since 2016.
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BREAKING: We’ve just disrupted a performance of Romeo and Juliet at Sadler’s Wells theatre, telling them to drop @Barclays dirty oil sponsorship! It’s time to get #OilyMoneyOut of our arts, our city and our futures 🚫 pic.twitter.com/NU9hQjUpou
Barclays also invests in the oil company Equinor who are pushing forward controversial plans for the Rosebank oil and gas field in the North Sea. They are currently waiting on the approval of their environmental report by the government, due in October.
