Chevron, BP Perth HQ targeted by #Breakfree2016 climate activists

This article was originally featured at nofibs.com.au

The protest included a march and street sit-in, office occupation, and a sit-in occupation in the foyer of the QV1 building, the Perth Headquarters for BP and Chevron in Western Australia. John Englart reports using social media.

Perth is home to the largest concentration of oil and gas companies with more than 300 international companies in the sector now based in the city. Western Australia is also a regional base for more than 40 major oilfield service companies.

BP questioned on Pay, #climatechange and Bight project at BP AGM

BP board had a torrid time at their AGM with 59 per cent of shareholders rejecting the executive remuneration package and questions on climate change, and the new project in the Great Australian Bight that has been described as a carbon bomb.

Inside the AGM, BP were grilled by shareholders, including big institutional investors, about their reckless plans to drill in the Bight. Wilderness Society national campaign director Lyndon Schneiders and Catherine Howarth from partner organisation ShareAction were in the meeting and asked pointed questions about the Bight.

It was reported that members of the board appeared to distance themselves from the Bight proposal, pointing the finger at the Australian government for enticing oil companies to drill in the region. The CEO also remarked, quite rightly: "Gosh this investment in Australia is not very popular today."

Oil spill at BP Melbourne a #FightfortheBight

Original story at storify, then posted at nofibs.com.au

Activists from the Wilderness Society, Sea Shepherd, Friends of the Earth and others came together this morning outside BP Australia's headquarters on Bourke Street Melbourne to stage a mock oil spill. They are highlighting the massive risks from BP oil exploration in the Great Australian Bight.

These risks are considerable and multiple including the climate risk of exceeding the 2C temperature limit agreed to at the Paris UN climate talks, and the risk of an oil spill damaging the pristine marine and coastal environment from Western Australia to Victoria and Tasmania.

The mock oil spill provided effective street theatre on Bourke Street outside BP's Melbourne offices. Some people dressed in decontamination suits with 44 gallon drums as props containing the BP insignia. Protestors chanted "BP has no right, no right to risk the bight".

Evidence mounts for litigation of major Carbon polluters with climate change

The world is moving rapidly on withdrawing the social licence of carbon polluters. As the impacts of climate change become clearer and the urgency for rapid action impresses itself on the public psyche in the lead up to the Paris climate talks in December 2015, the major carbon polluters will increasingly find it more difficult to operate with social support.

The longer these fossil fuel companies delay making amends for the damages their businesses have already caused and will cause in the future, the more culpable they will become.

Up until relatively recently, responsibility for addressing climate change has largely been seen as the role of the Governments of nation states and the necessary multi-lateral action through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to regulate carbon pollution. But action through the UNFCCC has been extremely slow, often hindered by corporate lobbying and voting block interests.

But recent research by Heede (2014) has shown that individual investor or state owned corporations are responsible for a substantial majority of greenhouse gas pollution causing climate change. Heede's landmark paper was on Tracing anthropogenic carbon dioxide and methane emissions to fossil fuel and cement producers, 1854-2010.

BP refuses to release #oilspill models for deep sea drilling #SouthAustralia coast

Pristine beaches along Eyre peninsula under potential threat if an oil spill occurs Photo: John Englart This original article was published at nofibs.com.au

The fifth anniversay of British Petroleum's Deepwater Horizon oil spill has just passed. Could such a devastating oil spill happen in Australia? Conservationists with the Wilderness Society and other environmental groups say it is a distinct possibility, off Australia's southern shores in the Great Australian Bight. And it is British Petroleum (BP) again in the hot seat with exploration licences about to do some deep sea exploratory drilling.

On Monday April 20th activists from the Wilderness Society converted the statue of Colonel Light in Adelaide to a sea of black to imitate an oil spill. They were highlighting that BP is refusing to release oil spill modelling or emergency plans for their exploratory drilling in the Bight and the potential for catastrophic environmental damages to pristine ocean ecosystems and beaches on the South Australian coast.

Wilderness Society director, Peter Owen, told the ABC: "The potential of oil all over South Australia's beaches was not Colonel Light's vision for South Australia," he said. "This is high risk. Why are the people of South Australia being asked to carry the risk for these big companies whilst they refuse to disclose their oil spill modelling, their plans to respond to an emergency?"

"In order to get that approval they [BP] have to consult with the community yet they are refusing to disclose any oil spill modelling, they're refusing to disclose any oil spill emergency planning. They are not being transparent with the people of South Australia." said Owen.

#Adelaide statue converted into oil spill during environmentalists' protest http://t.co/lVBEcGUlzw pic.twitter.com/qepeedG8r1

— ABC News Adelaide (@abcnewsAdelaide) April 20, 2015

"We are confident that when we publish the clear, complete and accessible summary, it will satisfy the needs of our stakeholders and inform discussion," a BP spokesperson told the ABC.

But oil spill modelling and emergency response plans still remain unavailable to the general public to assess.