Six Greenpeace International activists have today disembarked a Shell oil platform at the port of Haugesund, southwest Norway, after a 13-day occupation and nearly 4,000km, with police making no arrests.
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In a final stand at 10.30am (CET), protestors climbed the platform’s 125m flare boom, and waved a banner saying ‘Stop drilling. Start Paying.’
Meanwhile five fellow activists led by Greenpeace Southeast Asia executive director, Yeb Saño, on board Greenpeace Nordic’s 8-meter Tanker Tracker boat sailed out to confront the 51-000-tonne White Marlin vessel contracted by Shell as it approached the port.
At midday the platform was brought in to dock, and protestors were able to descend the boom and disembark at 2.30pm, having traveled nearly 4,000km from where they first boarded, north of the Canary Islands. It is Greenpeace’s longest ever occupation of a moving oil platform.
The protestors have been calling on Shell to take responsibility for its role in causing the climate crisis, and to pay into loss and damage funds, to help countries recover from extreme weather caused by climate change.
The platform is a floating production storage and offloading [FPSO] unit destined for a major redevelopment project as Shell seeks to squeeze every last drop of oil from the Penguins field. Burning all of the oil and gas from the field redevelopment would create 45m tonnes of CO2 – more than the entire annual emissions of Norway.
Today, Greenpeace Nordic sent a third boat to confront Shell’s oil platform as it was brought into port in Norway.
As the oil platform was brought into port, the six activists involved in the occupation were able to peacefully disembark, with Norwegian police making no arrests.
The fortnight of protests has seen activists come together from Argentina, Cameroon, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Norway, the Philippines, South Africa, Sweden, Turkey, the UK and the U.S. to call for climate justice. ■
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