Taking
global action against global warming 09/12/2005
- Map Ta Phut, Thailand — From meeting rooms in Montreal
to coal-fired power plants in Germany and Thailand to
ports hosting shiploads of illegal nuclear waste, Greenpeace
has been in action against global warming around the world
in the last two weeks.
Update 9 December: In a major breakthrough,
the Thai National Economic and Social Advisory Council
of the Prime Minister's office has committed to review
the Government's energy policy. We are ending our blockade
of the Map Ta Phut coal facility.
"Greenpeace considers this a
major victory for the Thai people," said Greenpeace
Southeast Asia spokesperson Tara Buakamsri from the sit-in
which had disrupted the plant's operations today. "Thailand
has a vast potential for clean, renewable energies such
as modern biomass, wind and solar. It's time to shift
government policy towards them."
The Rainbow Warrior's South East Asian Energy Revolution
campaign entered its third day of activity today at one
of Asia's largest coal-fired power plants. Activists from
Thailand, the Philippines, and the United States climbed
the loading crane of the BLCP coal plant at Map Ta Phut
in Thailand and unfurled banners demanding the plant's
immediate closure on Wednesday, calling on the Thai government
to phase out coal power and to commit to renewable energy.
On Thrusday they added a camp on an electricity pylon,
and on Friday blockaded the entrance to the plant.
Coal is the main cause of climate
change in Thailand and Southeast Asia. Greenpeace demands
that construction on this site be stopped and a thorough
review of the Thai Government's coal-driven energy plan
be undertaken immediately," said Greenpeace Southeast
Asia spokesperson Tara Buakamsri from the camp. "We
will stay here until our demands are met."
Climate change is causing severe hardship
in Thailand and across the Southeast Asia region, and
according to Tara, "Plants like BLCP are the main
culprits."
Meanwhile, on the other side of the
globe.
In Germany earlier this week, the
most polluting coal plant in Europe provided the platform
for a simple message: "CO2 Kills." The owner
of the plant is planning ten new brown-coal power units,
one of which together with the plant we've occupied will
emit more CO2 than the entire nation of New Zealand. Twenty
Greenpeace activists occupied the stack for more than
60 hours.
In Montreal, 181 countries are meeting
to determine what the world is going to do about global
warming. A key issue at the summit is how other countries
will deal with strong pressure from the US to ignore climate
change. Our message to the delegates? Ignore the US administration.
Take action. (Updates here)
In Canada, the United States, Japan,
Germany, France, Bangladesh, Brazil, Australia and South
Africa, people took to the streets on Saturday to demand
just that. 7,000 marched on Montreal alone. Five environmental
groups including Greenpeace delivered a petition signed
by 600,000 Americans to the US consulate in Montreal,
calling upon President Bush and the US Congress to help
slow global warming.
In the UK, Greenpeace activists made
clear that the government won't be able to build more
dirty nuclear power plants without a fight, as they occupied
the room in which Tony Blair planned to outline a review
of the UK's energy future.
In France, Greenpeace blocked a shipment of nuclear waste
bound for Russia in an action illustrating one more reason
why nuclear power is not a solution to climate change.
The waste is currently in transit along more than a dozen
European coastlines, a terrorist target and a telling
reminder that nobody knows what to do with nuclear waste.
Asia and global warming
When it comes to climate change, Asia
is a place of particular opportunity and threat.
Catastrophic droughts across Thailand this year cost the
country US $193 million and untold human suffering. The
Thai government has set a target of delivering 8% of its
energy from renewables by 2011, a goal which we don't
believe the government can meet if it continues to divert
funding from renewables into coal.
Renewables can provide 35 percent
of Thailand's energy supply by 2020; there already exists
enough biomass to power 25 percent of the country's electricity
needs.
"Climate change is a reality
but so too are the solutions," said Jean-Francois
Fauconnier of Greenpeace International aboard the Rainbow
Warrior. "Wind, solar and modern biomass power are
already big business not only in Europe but also in China.
The potential in Thailand is equally huge.
"International financial institutions
like the Asian Development Bank and the Japan Bank for
International Cooperation should stop financing coal.
They continuously talk up their support for renewables
yet we've seen very little in the way of funds being re-directed
towards those energies. It's time for less talk and more
action."
Greenpeace's flagship the Rainbow
Warrior is in Bangkok on the Thailand leg of its 10-week
Asia Energy Revolution Tour, exposing the impacts of climate
change and promoting the uptake of renewable energy like
wind and biomass. The tour started in Australia and will
end in Thailand. |