At least 102 climate activists from seventeen countries representing Greenpeace, Stay Grounded, Extinction Rebellion, Scientist Rebellion and other climate justice groups are still being detained in Geneva, Switzerland 20 hours after a peaceful protest against Europe’s largest annual private jet fair, the European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (EBACE) in Geneva.
“A unique, European coalition of courageous activists from 17 countries severely disrupted the excessive champagne party of a super-rich elite – Europe’s largest private jet sales event. Their demand is unequivocal, private aviation should be consigned to the history books. We support the activists and demand their immediate release.” – said Klara Maria Schenk, a transport expert for the European Mobility For All campaign.
Activists peacefully occupied jets exhibited at the business event by the Geneva airport and chained themselves to aircraft gangways in order to keep prospective buyers from entering. The protestors held giant tobacco-style health warning label hand banners marking the jets as toxic objects and warning that ‘Private Jets Burn Our Future’, ‘Kill Our Planet’, and ‘Fuel Inequality’. Public service announcements from loudspeakers carried by the activists exposed the devastating consequences of private jets for our planet and revealed the hypocrisy of promoting private jets amidst rising social inequality.
Contrary to several misleading media reports, the activists never entered the taxiways or runways of the airport. The activists make it clear that at no time they intended to disrupt commercial air traffic at Geneva Airport. A spokeswoman for air traffic control agency Skyguide confirmed protestors had not accessed the runway during the incident, according to Aviation International News.
🚨URGENT: We are extremely concerned about the reports of excessive use of force against the climate activists at #EBACE2023 Europe’s largest private jet fair. We demand the immediate release of the 100 detained activists. Updates to come. #BanPrivateJetshttps://t.co/2XTJhImYsypic.twitter.com/Ytf861IAG2
— Greenpeace International (@Greenpeace) May 23, 2023
Protesters from Greenpeace, Stay Grounded, Extinction Rebellion and others chain themselves to aircraft in Geneva
Dozens of climate activists have disrupted Europe’s largest private jet trade fair by chaining themselves to aircraft to protest against the sector’s carbon emissions.
The demonstrators on behalf of Greenpeace, Stay Grounded, Extinction Rebellion and Scientist Rebellion also attached themselves to the entrance gates of the event at Geneva airport in the hope of preventing prospective buyers from entering the annual show.
The activists, who were calling for a global ban on the use of private jets because of their carbon footprint, stuck tobacco-style health warning labels on some of the jets at the European Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition (EBACE) saying private jets “burn our future”, “kill our planet”, and “fuel inequality”.
— Stay Grounded – @staygroundednet on Bluesky 🦋 (@StayGroundedNet) May 23, 2023
❗HAPPENING NOW❗ More than 100 brave climate activists from @Greenpeace@staygroundednet @extinctionrebellion and @scientistrebellion demand #BanPrivateJets in #EBACE, the biggest private jet sales fair in Europe, an event for private jet users to keep buying and flying in their… pic.twitter.com/JUP7UCZnP2
— Greenpeace International (@Greenpeace) May 23, 2023
Climate scientists have blocked private jet terminals around the world today in protest of ‘luxury emissions’.
London Luton Airport, Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam and Bromma Airport in Stockholm are among those being disrupted by activists from Scientist Rebellion, Extinction Rebellion (XR) and Stay Grounded.
It follows actions against private jets in Brussels and Seville yesterday, and one in Los Angeles on 11 February, with more protests expected in the coming months.
“It is time to ban private jets and tax frequent flyers to the ground”, says NASA climate scientist Dr Peter Kalmus from Scientist Rebellion.
“We cannot allow the rich to sacrifice our present and future in the pursuit of their luxury lifestyles.”
“Fossil fuels did this,” said one climate justice campaigner. “Unless we ditch fossil fuels immediately in favor of a just, renewable-energy based system, heatwaves like this one will continue to become more intense and more frequent.”
As record-breaking temperatures continue to pummel the Indian subcontinent—endangering the lives of millions of people and scorching crops amid a global food crisis—climate scientists and activists are warning that deadly public health crises of this sort will only grow worse as long as societies keep burning fossil fuels.
“Governments can no longer approve fossil fuel projects, and financial institutions can no longer fund them, without our suffering on their hands.”
“This heatwave is definitely unprecedented,” Chandni Singh, senior researcher at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements and a lead author at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), toldCNN on Monday. “We have seen a change in its intensity, its arrival time, and duration.”
Although heatwaves are common in India, especially in May and June, overpowering temperatures arrived several weeks earlier than usual this year—a clear manifestation of the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency, according to Clare Nullis, an official at the World Meteorological Organization.
As CNN reported:
The average maximum temperature for northwest and central India in April was the highest since records began 122 years ago, reaching 35.9º and 37.78ºC (96.62º and 100ºF) respectively, according to the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD).
Last month, New Delhi saw seven consecutive days over 40ºC (104ºF), three degrees above the average temperature for the month of April, according to CNN meteorologists. In some states, the heat closed schools, damaged crops, and put pressure on energy supplies, as officials warned residents to remain indoors and keep hydrated.
The heatwave has also been felt by India’s neighbor Pakistan, where the cities of Jacobabad and Sibi in the country’s southeastern Sindh province recorded highs of 47ºC (116.6ºF) on Friday, according to data shared with CNN by Pakistan’s Meteorological Department (PMD). According to the PMD, this was the highest temperature recorded in any city in the Northern Hemisphere on that day.
“This is the first time in decades that Pakistan is experiencing what many call a ‘spring-less year,” Pakistan’s Minister of Climate Change, Sherry Rehman said in a statement.
April’s record-shattering temperatures came on the heels of India’s hottest March in more than a century and one of its driest. Meanwhile, the region’s annual monsoon season is still weeks away.
“This is what climate experts predicted and it will have cascading impacts on health,” said Singh. “This heatwave is testing the limits of human survivability.”
In a statement released late last week, Shibaya Raha, a senior digital organizer with 350.org South Asia, said that “we cannot deny this climate crisis any longer. We are experiencing heatwaves in spring.”
“The heat is unbearable and people are suffering,” Raha continued. “Many in heavily populated areas do not have access to air conditioning, and workers with outdoor jobs are unable to carry out their work in this extreme heat, impacting sources of income.”
Land surface temperatures—a measure of how hot the Earth’s surface would feel to the touch in a particular location—exceeded 60ºC or 140ºF in parts of northwest India on Saturday, according to satellite imagery.
In addition to putting the lives of millions of farmers at risk, extreme heat is wreaking havoc on wheat fields. Gurvinder Singh, director of agriculture in the northern state of Punjab, known as “India’s breadbasket,” told CNN that the April heatwave reduced yields by 500 kilograms per hectare.
With Western media turning a blind eye on it,a massive heatwave is hitting Pakistan and NorthWest India with temperatures ~45C/113F.These conditions make living and working unbearable. That's not the new normal,it's the start of something that will get worse!#ClimateActionNow 1/ https://t.co/UiK61Ydx7p
“The IPCC report predicts significant increases in heatwaves globally, but we are the human faces of that science,” said Raha. “It looks daunting on paper but is even more devastating in reality and we demand immediate climate action.”
Namrata Chowdhary, chief of public engagement at 350.org, stressed that “the truth behind these heatwaves is searingly clear: fossil fuels did this.”
“While these temperatures are quite literally shocking, they come as no real surprise to communities that have long since lived on the frontlines of the climate crisis,” Chowdhary continued. “This is the latest spike in a rapidly worsening disaster, one that was foretold by climate activists the world over.”
“The IPCC report had already predicted that this densely populated region, where the vulnerabilities of over a billion people are compounded by power outages and lack of access to water, will be one of the worst affected by climate impacts,” said Chowdhary.
Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist and previous IPCC contributor, pointed out last week that the current heatwave is occurring in the context of 1ºC and 1.2ºC of warming in India and Pakistan, respectively.
The United Nations warned last year that even if governments around the world fulfill their current greenhouse gas-reduction pledges—few of which are backed by legislation or dedicated funding—the planet is whirling toward a “catastrophic” global temperature rise of 2.7ºC by 2100.
Based on the world’s current emissions trajectory, India and Pakistan are expected to experience 3.5ºC of warming by century’s end, according to country-level projections from researchers at Berkeley Earth.
“Unless we ditch fossil fuels immediately in favor of a just, renewable-energy based system,” said Chowdhary, “heatwaves like this one will continue to become more intense and more frequent.”
Raha added that “governments can no longer approve fossil fuel projects, and financial institutions can no longer fund them, without our suffering on their hands.”
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Hundreds of scientists from around the world took part in protests last week to apply pressure on government agencies to make “rapid and deep” cuts to greenhouse gas emissions before it’s too late.
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In Los Angeles, NASA scientist Peter Kalmus and three other people were arrested on Wednesday after they chained themselves to the front door of a Chase Bank building in protest of the company’s investment in fossil fuels.
“We’ve been trying to warn you guys for so many decades that we’re heading towards a f—— catastrophe, and we’ve been being ignored,” said Kalmus, Business Insider reported. “The scientists of the world are being ignored, and it’s got to stop. We’re not joking. We’re not lying. We’re not exaggerating.”
Kalmus and his fellow protesters were met with 100 LAPD officers in riot gear and arrested, according to Salon.
The protests were part of a week of civil disobedience organized by Scientist Rebellion, the scientific branch of the climate change activist group Extinction Rebellion.
More than 1,000 scientists from over 25 countries took part in the protests to highlight the findings from a United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report stating humanity only has three more years to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate change activists including an Olympic gold medal-winning canoeist have climbed on top of an oil tanker in a protest against the use of fossil fuels.
Extinction Rebellion protesters have surrounded the Shell tanker on Bayswater Road in London.
Olympian Etienne Stott said he wanted to “disrupt the toxic fossil fuel industry”.
PARIS, April 16 (Reuters) – Climate change activists forced the closure of a main square in central Paris on Saturday to protest against the environmental programmes put forward by France’s remaining presidential candidates.
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“We are blocking this Paris square to rebel against alternatives that we don’t have. This election leaves us with no choice between a far-right candidate with repugnant ideas … and a candidate who during five years cast the ecology issue aside and lied,” Lou, 26, a history teacher, who joined the Extinction Rebellion movement two years ago told Reuters.
Hundreds of people gathered in Paris’ 9th district brandishing banners targeting the candidates, chanting slogans such as “their inaction leads to our rebellion”, or lay on the floor in protest.
