Climate-focused activist groups the world over have planned a co-ordinate effort to “go after the fossil fuel industry.” Between May 7 and 15 of 2016, several activist groups will conduct a series of “non-violent, civil disobedience” campaigns in several countries, calling for stopping production of coal, oil and natural gas.

 

Talking of limiting temperature rise to 1.5 degrees (from pre-industrial era levels, by 2100) while at the same time making investments in fossil fuel sector is “hypocrisy at its best” said Nnimmo Bassey, an activist from the Health of Mother Earth Foundation, at a press conference at Paris, where the biggest ever climate negotiations are currently underway.

 

“I come from Nigeria and I have seen the horrors and terrors of oil extraction,” Bassey said.

 

Outlining the nature of the protests, Payal Parekh, global Managing Director of 350.org, a US-based NGO that campaigns for environment protection, said that several parts of the world would see “human chains peacefully blocking oil exports, human chains walking into coal fields, defiant marches heading towards headquarters of fossil fuel companies.” 

 

“Since governments aren’t getting it done, civil societies have to do it,” Parekh, a MIT-educated scientist turned activist, said.

 Carbon accumulation

Kumi Naidoo of Greenpeace International said that “new forms of resistance and struggles” would be adopted by civil society in their fight against climate change. He said that in The Philippines, the people had got Human Rights Commission to investigate into the role of 50 fossil fuel companies for the “carbon accumulation”, which results in loss of lives. The investigation will hopefully lead to litigation, Naidoo said. He said the civil society would also “go after people who lend money to fossil fuel companies.”

 

Business Line had reported the difficulties that companies such as Coal India, Neyveli Lignite Corporation, NTPC and ONGC are likely to face in a report (https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/portfolio/global-investor/fossil-fuels-running-out-of-steam/article7389281.ece) in July.

  Stop coal-based power

At Paris, many countries that depend on coal for energy, notably India and China, are under pressure to stop building coal-based power projects. Several countries including India, China, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela have opposed the Western countries’ proposal for ‘decarbonisation’ of the global economy in the future, perhaps in the second half of this century.

 

India, on its part, has asked for its fair share of ‘carbon space’ so that it could develop its economy.

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