Environmentalists protest at oil refinery

Environmental activists in the UK were today preparing to target an oil refinery in the build-up to the G8 summit.

Green campaigners will protest outside the BP plant at Grangemouth, near Falkirk, to challenge the G8 to put the needs of people before the demands of the oil industry when leaders meet at Gleneagles.

Members of Friends of the Earth Scotland (FoES) and eco-pressure group, People and Planet, will dress as mermaids and beach-goers to highlight the dangers posed by global warming.

FoES spokesman Lang Banks said: “In a peaceful protest activists will symbolically show Grangemouth oil refinery sinking beneath the waves to highlight the urgent need to tackle climate change.

“Grangemouth was chosen as the site for the action as it contains four of Scotland’s top 10 carbon dioxide emitters.”

Garry Glass of the Edinburgh University branch of People and Planet said: “We are taking action to tackle climate change at its very source.

“We realise that people’s livelihoods depend on the industry in Grangemouth and that is why we would like to put pressure on the oil industry to start a just transition to secure more sustainable jobs for the community before oil depletion and climate change become critical.”

FoES chief executive Duncan McLaren said: “Rising sea levels, extreme weather and shortages of food and water will affect millions of poor people before this century ends.

“The G8 must put the needs of the poor and of future generations before the interests of the fossil fuel industry.

“George Bush might still be indebted to the oil industry and happily let oil companies determine US policy on climate change, but together the G8 leaders must sign up to real action to prevent climate chaos and deliver climate justice.

“We need action to help not the oil industry and multinational companies, but those in the world’s poorer countries, who are least responsible for climate change but who suffer most from its impacts.”

Protesters will deliver an open letter to Ralph Alexander, the chief executive of Innovene, BP’s petrochemicals subsidiary, calling for the “just decommissioning of the oil industry”.