Protestors accuse BP of damaging environment and climate ahead of company AGM

The global Annual General Meeting of oil giant BP will face protests in Aberdeen from representatives of indigenous groups and climate change campaigners.

BP’s oil and gas extraction in a number of countries has serious harmful impacts on local communities and environment, and is being resisted by indigenous groups in Mozambique, Alaska, and Brazil.

In Mozambique, BP is funding the expansion of gas extraction in a region recently hit by two of the African continent’s most deadly storms. Scientists tell us that global warming, driven by fossil fuels like gas, is making such storms more frequent and more dangerous.

Ilham Rawoot, Justiça Ambiental (JA!)/Friends of the Earth Mozambique said:

“BP will be the sole buyer of gas from the Coral LNG Project in Mozambique, which is led by Eni, and is displacing and destroying the livelihoods of thousands of local people and devastating the environment. The development will affect the UNESCO-protected Quirimbas Archipelago at risk, home to coral reefs and a wide diversity of marine and terrestrial species including the endangered sei whale, Indian yellow-nosed albatross and loggerhead turtle. The environmental impact assessment shows that just this one project will increase the greenhouse gas emissions of Mozambique by 10% by 2022.”

“BP must pull out of this and all other fossil fuel projects. The people and planet must come first.”

After the protest, activists will go inside the AGM to ask BP to close these destructive projects and phase out their fossil fuel operations.

Caroline Rance, Friends of the Earth Scotland Climate Campaigner, who will be attending the AGM, commented,

“BP’s activities are driving lethal changes to our climate which are hitting the world’s poorest hardest. Communities affected by BP oil and gas extraction in Mozambique, Alaska and Brazil are here today to demand that they stop these damaging projects.

“Climate science is clear that we urgently need to phase out fossil fuels, yet BP are doing everything they can to squeeze every last drop. BP must stop wrecking indigenous communities and the global climate and put its fossil fuel operations into a managed decline.

“Real climate leadership means making tough decisions now that put us on a path to a climate safe future. A Just Transition for workers and communities currently dependent on high carbon industries here in Scotland is an essential part of that.”

BP plan to increase oil production by an additional 900 thousand barrels per day by 2021, despite the company claiming that they are acting on climate change (1).

The “Sea Change” report published on last week found that the UK’s oil and gas drilling plans, and Scottish Government’s support for them, are incompatible with responding to the climate emergency.

It found that the UK’s 5.7 billion barrels of oil and gas in already operating oil and gas fields will exceed the UK’s share in relation to the Paris climate goals – whereas industry and government aim to extract 20 billion barrels. It also demonstrated that given the right policies, clean industries could create more than three jobs for every North Sea oil job at risk, which can enable an ‘equivalent job guarantee’ for every oil worker. (2)

ENDS