MPs AND PUBLIC SIGNAL SUPPORT FOR GREENPEACE
15 August 1997
On the sixth day of Greenpeace activists' occupation of the Stena Dee oil drilling platform in the Atlantic Frontier, political and public support is growing for the campaign to prevent climate change by halting oil exploration and investing in solar power.
So far almost 90,000 people have signed a petition urging Tony Blair "to prevent climate change, by stopping new oil exploration in the Atlantic Frontier and investing in clean energy such as solar electricity." This is backed up by a cross party group of nearly 90 MPs who have supported the campaign in some way including the signing of Early Day Motions calling for the re-direction of fossil fuel subsidies to sustainable energy technologies.
Next month Greenpeace will be represented at the three main party conferences beginning with a green rally at the Liberal Democrats in Eastbourne on the eve of an important debate on the party's new climate change policy paper. In addition to speaking at a major fringe at the Labour Party conference on climate, Greenpeace is hoping that delegates will get a chance to check out the practical applications of renewable energy in the Greenpeace solar kitchen. This will be rounded off with a Greenpeace organised fringe at the Tory party Conference in Blackpool with the party environment spokesman Tim Yeo and a BP representative, chaired by Tom Burke - a former adviser to two Secretary of State's for the Environment.
Tim Yeo in a recent letter to Greenpeace said: "I am confident that in view of the steadily increasing interest and concern with climate change this is an opportune moment to promote discussion about the urgent need to switch away from present consumption of fossil fuels, and in turn this clearly has far reaching implications for future exploration."
Sir Edward Heath has also expressed support for further debate on the issue. A representative of his private office wrote to Greenpeace that: " Sir Edward believes that it would certainly be helpful for the Government to start a fundamental rethink of its policy regarding the use of fossil fuels."
The ongoing occupation by Greenpeace of the Stena Dee is part of Greenpeace's global campaign to protect the climate from dangerous levels of carbon dioxide emissions by preventing new reserves of oil being opened up. Another Greenpeace vessel, the MV Arctic Sunrise, has also just begun protest action against oil exploration on another new oil frontier in Alaska.
Overnight in the Atlantic Frontier, Greenpeace activists launched inflatables at 8pm and then again between 2am and 7 am to stop the Stena Dee moving towards its intended destination, BP's Foinaven field, still five miles away. Protestors were successful in stopping the Stena Dee from moving off. Protestors are occupying a solar survival capsule strapped to the leg of the floating oil platform.
Notes to Correspondents
1. For photographs/video footage of the Greenpeace occupation of the Stena Dee please contact the Greenpeace Press Office.
2. The full wording of the first early day motion signed by 49 MPs (as of 9 June 1997) is as follows: "This House welcomes the new Government's claim to put concern for the environment at the heart of policy making, so that it is not an add-on extra but informs the whole of government from housing to energy policy through to global warming and international agreements; notes that later this month world leaders will meet at the Environmental Special Session of the UNGA to discuss the environment for the first time since the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, where the UK signed up to the Framework Convention on Climate change whose objective is to constrain climate change to rates and limits allowing ecosystems to adapt naturally; further notes that in 1995 scientists from the IPCC deemed climate change to be discernible; calls on the Government to ensure that energy prices reflect the environmental costs of energy production using instruments such as carbon and energy taxes; and further believes that the priority should be given to developing renewables over fossil fuels by the removal of all direct and indirect subsidies to the fossil fuel and nuclear industries and the transferral of these funds to accelerate the commercialisation of sustainable energy technologies and the uptake of energy efficiency."
3. The full wording of the second early day motion signed by 41 MPs is as follows: "This House congratulates the Peabody Trust, the capital's largest housing association providing homes for 27,000 Londoners, for its joint initiative with Greenpeace on a benchmark solar project which has furnished three terraced homes in Silvertown in London's docklands with completely solar-powered resources; notes that each house is expected to save a third of its electricity bills a year - around £60 - resulting not just in savings for people on low incomes but also helping to protect the climate by utilising a safe and clean renewable resource; and calls on the Government to re-direct the monies currently spent supporting the fossil fuel industry in the UK to provide capital grants for a national solar programme to deliver a minimum of 50,000 solar powered homes by 2010."
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