Today hundreds of protesters from climate and anti-cuts groups across
the country have teamed up to block the UK Energy Summit in the City of
London. They descended on the conference venue at 11.45 am this
morning, and intend say they intend to remain there to disrupt the UK
Energy Summit. At least 300 protesters targeted all of the main
entrances to the Summit venue, attempting to push past police to enter
the conference.
The UK Energy Summit [2] involves CEOs of the Big Six energy
companies, who have recently come under widespread criticism for drawing
in record profits whilst one quarter of UK households have been pushed
into fuel poverty. [3] The event is taking place place at The Grange
Hotel, near St Paul's Cathedral.
The protest congregated at four
locations before descending on the summit: Tate Modern, St Paul’s, City
Thameslink and Canon St. En route to the summit venue, protesters used
“any means necessary” to get their message out by using stickers, chalk
and noise to draw attention to the protest. Once they arrived at The
Grange Hotel, they attempted to enter the hotel building with banners
and giant model dinosaurs as a reference to the outdated “dinosaur
technology” of fossil fuels. Reports have been of police violence when
at least two people were arrested, with one protester possibly knocked
unconscious by police.
The Climate Justice Collective (CJC) is a
national network – which says it tackles corporate control, fuel
poverty and climate change – is behind the protest titled 'The Big Six
Energy Bash'. Stemming from the colourful and confrontational Climate
Camp [4], CJC says it is also close to the Occupy movement.
Other
groups supporting the Big Six Energy Bash are: UK Uncut, Occupy London,
Disabled People Against the Cuts, Global Women’s Strike, Kick Nuclear,
UK Tar Sands Network, Campaign Against Climate Change, Biofuelwatch,
Bristol Energy Cooperative, Stop Nuclear
Power Network, London Rising Tide and Fuel Poverty Action.
Billie
Blackwood, CJC said: “The UK Energy Summit is a classic 1% stitch up.
It is corporate elites, including the government, conspiring to keep the
status quo of high energy prices, soaring profits, growing climate
instability and disaster capitalism. This conference is the wrong people
asking the wrong questions and proposing the wrong solutions.”
Katharine
Jones, an anti-cuts protester from Manchester said: "The UK Energy
summit gives the Big Six an opportunity to push the government further
into their pockets. The government are putting more people into fuel
poverty through brutal welfare cuts; it's great that groups like UK
Uncut and Disabled People Against the Cuts are teaming up with climate
activists to oppose the corporate control that is driving poverty,
austerity and climate crisis."
The protest has been organised
around themed ‘blocs’. Each bloc reflects a different aspect of climate
injustice and has played a different strategic role in disrupting the
conference.[5]
• The Robin Hood Bloc focuses on the energy
monopoly of the Big Six energy providers which control 99% of domestic
energy in the UK. Using Robin Hood imagery it calls for 'Taking the
power back' and putting 'People before profit'.
• The Dirty
Energy Bloc promises 'Dirty energy, dirty bass-lines and dirty
business.’ It represents destructive fossil fuel energy sources such as
fracking, tar sands, deep sea oil drilling and open cast coal, that are
costing the earth and driving up the cost of our
fuel bills.
•
The Fossil Free Futures Bloc is family-friendly and aims to drive the
Big Six Energy Dinosaurs into extinction. This bloc demonstrates the
colour and creativity of the democratic, fair and clean alternatives to
the prehistoric energy companies’ fuels and thinking.
• The
Housing Bloc will speak out for warm homes and community control. The
bloc exposes the role of Big Six profiteering alongside government
degradation and privatisation of housing as the main factors driving
fuel poverty.
[1] Details of the protest can be found at
http://climatejusticecollective.org/bigsixenergybash, on Twitter
(@CJ_Collective) and on Facebook
( https://www.facebook.com/events/116076668516532/)
[2] Details of the UK Energy Summit can be found at
http://www.economistconferences.co.uk/event/uk-energy-summit-2012/5964
[3] See http://www.independent.co.uk/money/spend-save/four-million-homes-in-debt-to-energy-giants-7619404.html;
http://www.mirror.co.uk/money/city-news/a-quarter-of-brits-are-living-in-fuel-poverty-139644;
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/big-firms-15bn-bonanza-as-cold-and-fuel-poverty-bite-6720013.html.
[4] See www.climatecamp.org.uk
[5]
Protestors have signed up to join a bloc online at
climatejusticecollective.org/bigsixbash and receive SMS text alerts
about the meeting place and action plan for their bloc.
Climate Justice Collective
e-mail: climatejusticecollective@gmail.com
Homepage: http://climatejusticecollective.org/
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