‘The time is over for oily corporations to operate with impunity.’
A group of 27 investors, owning around 5 percent of Shell’s shares, is demanding the multinational improves its environmental targets. The resolution is the biggest such drive to date and was coordinated by the activist group Follow This.
Similar motions have been organised by the group at Shell meetings since 2016. Last year, a resolution put forward by Follow This won the backing of 20 percent of shareholders in what was an eventful AGM where protesters tried to storm the stage.
However, support for the upcoming resolution has drawn the largest number of investment managers, said Mark van Baal, founder of Follow This. It includes Europe’s largest asset manager, Amundi.
The group calls on Shell to align its ‘medium term’ greenhouse gas emission target with the Paris Agreement, to limit global warming. The resolution will be brought to a vote at Shell’s annual general meeting later this year.
The bid to shore up pressure on Shell’s climate commitments comes as its CEO, Wael Sawan, aims to boost the company’s profits, partly by increasing fossil fuel production and slowing down investments in renewables. In October 2023, Shell announced it was to cut at least 15 percent of its low-carbon solutions division workforce and scale back on its hydrogen business.
Tens of thousands of people gather to join the Global Day of Action calling for a ceasefire and an end to the war on Gaza on the 13th of January 2024, Central London, United Kingdom. The march and rally coincided with marches all over the World. (Photo by Kristian Buus/In Pictures via Getty Images)
Coordinated actions from DC to London to Jakarta designed to “send a powerful message not just to the Israelis but to the Western powers who are backing them that the public say ‘not in our name.'”
Major coordinated demonstrations took place across the world on Saturday to mark the 100th day of Israel’s bombardment and military assault on the people of the Gaza Strip that have now claimed the lives of nearly 24,000 Palestinians, a large majority of them innocent men, women, and children who had nothing to do with the attacks orchestrated by Hamas on October 7 of last year.
In London, as many as 500,000 people marched on Parliament Square to demand an immediate cease-fire Gaza, condemn their own U.K. government’s support of Israel’s disproportionate and “genocidal” onslaught, and warn against a wider regional war that experts warn is creeping closer by the day.
‘Justice is lacking’: pro-Palestine demonstrators gather in London www.youtube.com
“This Global Day of Action, from Australia through to Asia, Europe and the Americas, is the first coordinated, international movement against the war being waged by Israel on the Palestinian people,” said Gaza Global Day of Action organizers ahead of the demonstration. “It will send a powerful message not just to the Israelis but to the Western powers who are backing them that the public say ‘not in our name.'”
In Dublin, organizers of a march that saw more than 100,000 march through city streets called it the largest rally for Palestinian rights in Irish history.
So proud of this today – one of biggest protests in Ireland in recent years Tens of thousands march in Massive solidarity protest today in Dublin with Gaza#CeasefireNOW#palestine🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/rOusYmzsfR
The crowd was filled with Palestinian flags, posters calling for an “End to the Gaza genocide” as well as makeshift washing lines, with baby clothes hanging from it, representing the many young lives lost in the conflict.
At the front of the march, four people held mock corpses in bloody body bags to represent the growing number of civilian casualties.
In the United States, tens of thousands marched in Washington, D.C. to denounce the Israeli onslaught—which has claimed over 23,000 lives, including more than 10,000 children—as well as their own government’s complicity in the carnage. President Joe Biden was on the tip of many demonstrators’ tongues and polls in the U.S. have shown very little support across the political spectrum for how he is handling the situation.
Jake and Ida Braford, a young couple from Richmond, Virginia, who brought their two small children to the protest, told the Associated Press the situation in Gaza has made them unsure of their support for Biden come this year’s election.
“We’re pretty disheartened,” Ida told the news agency. “Seeing what is happening in Gaza, and the government’s actions makes me wonder what is our vote worth?”
Following the march, demonstrators left a pile of bloodied baby dolls, including severe parts, in a pile outside the White House as a message to Biden. “The blood of the over 10,000 murdered children in Gaza is on his hands,” said CodePink co-founder Jodie Evans.
Meanwhile, in Indonesia, thousands gathered outside the U.S. embassy in Jakarta to condemn the ongoing “genocide” in Gaza perpetrated by Israel with the backing of the U.S. government and other Western allies.
Global day of action: Demonstration at US embassy in Jakarta urges ceasefire in Gaza www.youtube.com
Large protests were also held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia as well as in the South African cities of Cape Town and Johannesburg. On Thursday, a delegation from South Africa presented its case charging Israel with genocide before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.
“We are here today to be part of the global day of action that will see demonstrations planned in more than 66 cities and at least 36 countries,” said a statement released by the organizers in Cape Town. “Today’s rally will be part of a united front of global voices, calling unconditionally for an immediate and permanent ceasefire.”
Cities in Israel were not among those holding large-scale demonstrations against the government’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza. One application by Israelis for a rally in Haifa to denounce the onslaught was rejected.
As Haaretzreported: “The commander of the police’s Coastal District, Maj. Gen. Daniel Levy, explained that the refusal to grant the permit was over “real concerns about a serious disruption to public order,” adding that there was a high likelihood that violence would break out between demonstrators and people opposing the demonstration.”
People take part in a Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign demonstration in Glasgow. Picture date: Saturday November 25, 2023.
HUNDREDS of thousands of protesters again took to the streets of London and major cities across Britain on Saturday as public anger over Israel’s slaughter in Gaza showed no signs of abating.
Demands for a ceasefire echoed in and other centres on the second day of the four-day “pause” in Israel’s attack for the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
In London, police arrested 18 protesters and police were accused of using catch-all Section 12 regulations to make arrests in response to political pressure.
Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) director Ben Jamal said: “There has been a major political effort by pro-Israel voices, including in government, to defame the protests as hate marches.
“In response the police today imposed a ludicrous Section 12 that gave them power to arrest anyone arriving early or leaving late no matter what they were doing.”
Stop the War Coalition national officer John Rees said: “This is political policing and it’s pretty certain none of this will be applied to tomorrow’s march for Israel,” referring to today’s demonstration called by the Campaign Against Anti-semitism.
ANTI-WAR and pro-Palestinian groups are defying Metropolitan Police calls to postpone a demonstration demanding a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip that they have planned for Armistice Day.
Thousands of protesters are expected to descend onto central London once again this weekend as Israel’s bombardment of the Palestinian territory continues.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak heaped further pressure on Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley yesterday to ban Friday’s protest, claiming that it would be “provocative and disrespectful.”
The Met urged the march organisers to “urgently reconsider” their plans, but it has not yet formally requested the power to ban the event under section 13 of the Public Order Act 1986.
The Act would only apply if there was a threat of “serious public disorder” that could not be controlled by other measures.
just Stop Oil shut down Whitehall 6 Nov 2023. 130 arrests.
Just Stop Oil activists are continuing their campaign of peacefully marching in the streets of London, to the point of arrest. They are demanding the government immediately halt all new oil, gas, and coal projects in the UK.
130 Just Stop Oil supporters from the North and South West of England began marching down Whitehall from Trafalgar Square this morning. A small number of Metropolitan Police arrived at 11:37am. By 11:52 am they has started arresting Just Stop Oil activists for allegedly breaching Section 7 of the Public Order Act 2023. They were unable to bring the march to a halt at this stage, and the supporters made their way to Parliament. By 12:13 there were more than 100 police present and all Just Stop Oil activists were arrested, with most peaceully refusing to comply with the police.
Today marked the start of a second week of slow marching. According to the Metropolitan Police, a total of 111 people were arrested last week, with 54 being people charged, 4 put on tag, and 3 held on remand at Wandsworth, Thameside and Bronzefield prisons. Last week, police officers arrested Just Stop Oil supporters for simply handing out leaflets on the pavement, causing one man to suffer a fit after being violently restrained.
Laura Fretwell, a 23 year old retail worker from Ilkeston said:
“I’m taking action with Just Stop Oil because if we don’t end new oil and gas, everything we know and love will be destroyed because of the greed of a select few. The government needs to take drastic action now to prevent climate chaos. Their refusal to do so condemns us all.”
“I will march, facing the threat of violence and arrest, because our children deserve better than to be living on a dying planet. We owe it to them to create a better world, as our elders have done for us.”
Justin Jago, 53, a registered blind guide dog user from Bristol said:
“I am marching in response to government plans to issue over 100 new oil and gas licences. I am angry that this government has failed to address the catastrophe that is killing people around the world and threatens the future of humanity without immediate action. Soaring temperatures and adverse weather conditions are causing forest fires and flooding, killing countless people and causing mass displacement of families.
“Historically civil disobedience has been the catalyst for positive change when governments have failed us, and I can’t ignore the facts. We owe it to children and young people facing a frightening future to act.”
Just Stop Oil is calling on people to join them everyday at midday in Trafalgar Square from 20th November to march in London until the government ends new oil and gas.
