Extinction Rebellion disrupts pipeline engineer’s offices to demand East African Crude Oil Pipeline boycott
March 06, 2023 by Extinction Rebellion
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At 08:30 this morning, Extinction Rebellion disrupted the offices of petro-engineering multinational firm Worley in Brentford, Middlesex, demanding they drop their client EACOP. Worley will be laying the controversial 900-mile cross-border East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), which is set to displace over 100,000 people, harm the natural environment and increase CO2 emissions by 34 million tonnes a year.
People scaled the building, occupying the portico. They are refusing to come down and have unfurled banners and set off smoke flares.
The EU has voted in a special resolution condemning EACOP for its well documented human rights abuses in Uganda and Tanzania, which include death threats, intimidation and wrongful imprisonment. [1] It is considered inevitable that oil spills will occur over the lifetime of the project throughout the African Great Lakes region, damaging various protected and sensitive ecosystems. [2]
In 2021 the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned that limiting global warming to 1.5°C to prevent climate change’s most destructive impacts would require new oil and gas development to stop immediately – yet this project won’t come on stream until 2030. [3]
James Knapp, a company director from Dorking, said: “Until Worley announce they are withdrawing from this horrendous project they will be seen as complicit in crimes against some of the most vulnerable people on this planet, people already struggling in the face of climate change, and against nature. We call on Worley to locate their consciences, act with humanity, and drop EACOP.”
Nicola Parkinson (53), a counsellor, said: “The East African Crude Oil Pipeline is a carbon bomb. From 2030 it’s 240,000 barrels a day would boost global emissions when we need to be dramatically reducing them. That’s why banks such as Barclays and HSBC [4] and four of the world’s biggest insurance companies [5] have refused to work with EACOP. It’s high time Worley did the same, Drop EACOP!”
TotalEnergies, one of the two oil companies involved, is being sued in France by several NGOs for allegedly failing to comply with the country’s 2017 duty-of-care law. Any French company with more than 10,000 employees is required to identify and prevent human rights and environmental abuses resulting from its own activities or those of its subcontractors. The NGOs are asking the Paris court to suspend TotalEnergies’ Ugandan projects, claiming the company is in breach of this legal obligation.
Today’s protests are part of a series of ‘Cut the Ties’ actions” which launched in November 2022 simultaneously at 13 sites across London. The campaign targets a web of organisations propping up the fossil fuel economy.
Extinction Rebellion is inviting everyone to Westminster from 21 April 2023 to demand a fair society and a citizen-led end to the fossil fuel era. Find out more about The Big One.
—Ends—
Notes to editor
[2] Counting the cost of Uganda’s east Africa oil pipeline – in pictures – The Guardian
[3] Pathway to critical and formidable goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 is narrow but brings huge benefits, according to IEA special report – International Energy Agency (IEA)
[4] Don’t Bank on EACOP: Who’s backing the pipeline and who’s ruled it out? – #StopEACOP
[5] Arch Insurance & AEGIS London latest to rule out insuring EACOP – Reinsurance News
About EACOP
The East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) is a planned 1,443-kilometre pipeline running from Uganda to Tanzania, which, if constructed, would be the longest heated crude oil pipeline in the world. The oil transported via the pipeline would generate 34 million tonnes of carbon emissions at peak, each year. The main operators of the multi-billion dollar project are the French oil major TotalEnergies and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, along with the Governments of Uganda and Tanzania.
About Extinction Rebellion
Extinction Rebellion (XR) is a decentralised, international and politically non-partisan movement using non-violent direct action and civil disobedience to persuade governments to act justly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency.
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Time has almost entirely run out to address the climate and ecological crisis which is upon us, including the 6th mass species extinction, global pollution, and increasingly rapid climate change. If urgent and radical action isn’t taken, we’re heading towards 4˚C warming, leading to societal collapse and mass loss of life. The younger generation, racially marginalised communities and the Global South are on the front-line. No-one will escape the devastating impacts.