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Prominent activists, hundreds of groups urge U.N. to champion a global ban, call fracking a climate and human rights disaster
New York, NY – On the eve of international youth-led climate strikes and next week’s United Nations Climate Change Summit, nearly 460 grassroots groups, faith communities, celebrities, activists and organizations from across the world are calling on the United Nations to endorse a worldwide ban on fracking.
Actors Mark Ruffalo, Emma Thompson and Amber Heard, authors and activists Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, Karenna Gore and Wenonah Hauter, fashion icons Vivienne Westwood and Joe Corré, human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson, iconic childrens’ singer Raffi, climate experts Dr. Robert Howarth and Dr. Sandra Steingraber, and nearly 460 grassroots groups sent an open letter to U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres stating that the “continued production, trade and use of fracked hydrocarbons for energy, petrochemicals and plastics torpedoes our global efforts to tackle climate change and violates basic human rights.”
The letter was organized by the American advocacy organization Food & Water Action (FWA) and its European arm, Food & Water Europe (FWE), as well as the Breathe Project, a Pittsburgh-based clearinghouse for information on air quality in Pennsylvania.
Wenonah Hauter, founder and executive director of Food & Water Action and Food & Water Europe, said: “In more than a decade of fighting fracking in the U.S., we’ve banned it in multiple states and made great progress elevating the issue globally. But there is much more work to do. The fracking surge in the U.S. has been a boon for the polluting petrochemical industry, which turns fracked gas into plastics. Our planet and our oceans are drowning in plastic and fracking companies are profiting. This needs to stop once and for all. We need a global ban on fracking.”
Banning fracking has been an urgent priority of climate activists for years. But it has recently moved onto the political stage as a key issue in the U.S. Democratic presidential race, with many top-tier candidates embracing the urgent call for a total ban.
“The climate emergency is a casting call for heroes, and we need everyone to show up. Step one is to stand up and say, loudly and clearly, that there is no place for fracking on a climate-destabilized planet,” said actor and longtime fracking activist Mark Ruffalo.
“Every well and every pipeline adds more methane and carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and pushes us closer to the edge of the climate cliff. The science demands, and our children demand, a global ban on fracking,” said actress and U.N. Human Rights Champion Amber Heard.
The signatories to the letter — including the Break Free From Plastic Movement, Friends of the Earth, Concerned Health Professionals of New York, European Environmental Bureau, Oil Change International, Heinrich-Böll-Foundation, Greenpeace Australia Pacific, Alianza Mexicana contra el Fracking, Support Centre for Land Change South Africa, Frack Free United, SumOfUs, Women Engage for a Common Future — point to the overwhelming scientific documenting the significant negative climate impacts of fossil gas and the environmental and disastrous public health implications of fracking.
“Fracking sounds nearly as ugly as it actually is. For the sake of the climate we need this obscenity to end right now!” said renowned author and 350.org founder Bill McKibben.
The letter also draws a direct line between fracking and the global plastic pollution crisis. As Food & Water Watch recently documented, a substantial amount of the gas drilling and related infrastructure being proposed is intended to use cheap fracked hydrocarbons to make plastic.
“Over the past decade, methane levels have been rising rapidly in the atmosphere, contributing significantly to the unprecedented global climate disruption seen in recent years,” said Cornell Professor of Ecology and Environmental Biology Robert Howarth, whose research on methane leaks has shed considerable light on the climate impacts of fracking. “Over 60 percent of the increased global methane emissions are from the oil and gas industry, and shale gas development in North America is responsible for one-third of the increased emissions from all sources. Fracking for shale gas is a climate disaster.”
A number of United Nations bodies have weighed in over the years on the dangers of fracking. The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESR) and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) have expressed concerns regarding the threat fracking represents for achieving the climate targets under the Paris Agreement and its impacts on human rights. And as early as 2012, the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) issued a “Global Alert” on fracking, concluding that it may have adverse environmental impacts even if done properly
As fashion icon Vivienne Westwood and environmental campaigner Joe Corré said: “Because fracking causes birth defects, in March 2019, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) took the harmful environmental and climate change impacts of fracking seriously enough to strongly urge the British Government to completely ban fracking. It speaks for itself that this highly respected U.N. body saw this legislative measure as the only solution to protect the human rights of women in rural areas in Britain”.
“A decade ago, when there were only nine scientific studies on the impacts of fracking, some political leaders suggested that fracking might serve as a bridge to a stable climate. Now there are 1,800 studies, and the science is clear. Fracking is making the climate crisis worse,” said Sandra Steingraber, PhD, biologist, co-founder of Concerned Health Professionals of New York. “Fracking is destroying drinking water and undermining human rights around the world. Fracking is harming health through toxic air pollution and supporting a polluting plastics industry that is killing our oceans. Our planet is on fire, but fracking is not an evacuation bridge nor a fire extinguisher. Fracking is an arsonist that needs to be stopped everywhere and right now.”
Prominent actress and activist Emma Thompson said: “Fracking is the fossil fuel world’s worst idea to date. It’s pointless, expensive, doesn’t create jobs that will serve a community, but it does pollute, damage and contribute to wrecking the climate. Its poisonous presence in our green and pleasant land is an affront to common sense, common health and the safety of the planet as a whole.”
“The climate crisis is the greatest ever threat to human rights. As the recent UN report on climate change and poverty makes clear, fossil fuel companies are the main driver of climate change and over-reliance on profit-driven actors in mitigating this crisis will almost guarantee massive human rights violations,” said human rights lawyer and barrister with Doughty Chamber Streets Jennifer Robinson. “What we really need is a global ban.”
The letter concludes by referring to the final advisory opinion of the Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) on Human Rights, Fracking and Climate Change, which recommended that fracking be banned, and that “the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment be asked to investigate the violations of the rights of humans and nature by the Unconventional Oil and Gas Extraction industry.”
Contacts:
Andy Gheorghiu, Food & Water Europe: [email protected], 0049 160 20 30 974
Peter Hart, Food & Water Action: [email protected], 732-839-0871
Brussels/Manchester – On Saturday 14th September local group Frack Free Greater Manchester will combine with national and international campaigners to protest sponsorship of the UK based cycling team by Ineos a major UK fracking and chemical engineering company and Europe’s biggest producer of virgin plastics. Protesters will wear devil masks with the counterfeit of the owner of Ineos, controversial billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, to highlight the “true face” of the Team Ineos sponsor.
This is part of a series of international protests against Ineos since their taking ownership of the former Team Sky. The first protests took place in May 2019 during the Tour of Yorkshire, followed by protests in Brussels and France during the Tour de France in July.(1)
Team Ineos will be taking part in Stage 8 of the Tour of Britain. Protesters will express their opposition during the race from the start in Altrincham to the finish in central Manchester.
The protest will be peaceful and respectful of cycling fans, indeed many of those taking part will themselves be cycling enthusiasts. However with their voices, banners and placards activists will demonstrate their opposition to this transparent attempt by Ineos to ‘greenwash’ it’s environment-damaging and climate-threatening industries.
Delphine Lévi Alvarès the European Coordinator of the #breakfreefreefromplastic movement consisting of more than 1,600 organisations worldwide said, “The #breakfreefromplastic movement is committed to tackling plastic pollution at all levels. INEOS’s massive plastic product expansion plans in Antwerp demonstrate their role in the plastic pollution crisis which devastates our communities, health and environment.”
Allan Challenger from Frack Free GM stated: “to reduce our carbon emissions fossil fuels need to be left in the ground. Due to its detrimental local health impacts, persistent triggering of seismic events and climate-busting methane emissions fracking is especially toxic and should be banned in the UK as it has been in other countries.”
“Ineos relies on climate hostile fracked gas to produce more cheap virgin plastic”, says Andy Gheorghiu, policy adivsor and campaigner for Food & Water Europe. “This company plays an active role in increasing the climate and plastic pollution crisis and it shouldn’t be allowed to greenwash it’s business model with the sponsorship of sports teams.”
Arrangement for photocall:
Altrincham 10.30 a.m.
Central Manchester 2.30 p.m.
Press contacts:
Allan Challenger, Frack Free Greater Manchester, email: [email protected] , phone: 07981495614
Andy Gheorghiu, Food & Water Europe, email: [email protected], phone: 0049 160 20 30 974
Notes:
Movement seeks to stop #Fracking4Plastics Antwerp expansion
Brussels – A new expansion plan championed by petrochemical company Ineos, which would further deepen the environmentally disastrous connection between the plastics industry and the US fracking boom, is drawing international opposition.
In 2016, Ineos, the largest ethylene producer in Europe, began importing fracked US ethane to Europe to turn it into plastics at its facilities in the UK and Norway. The company wants now to invest €3bn to build a new ethane ‘cracker’ and a propylene producing propane dehydrogenation (PDH) plant in the Port of Antwerp. The company has started the first of three intended Environmental Impact Assessment procedures for the project, which would deforest an area of 50-55 hectares.
The Port of Antwerp in Flanders, Belgium is home to the largest petrochemical cluster in Europe, and is now the second largest in the world after Houston, Texas. Satellite data showed last year that Belgium, and especially Antwerp, has some of the most polluted air in the world.
The plan of Ineos has spurred international opposition from 20 groups, NGOs and associations, who have jointly submitted an objection to the Port of Antwerp. Signatories from both sides of the Atlantic include Food & Water Europe, Food & Water Watch, #BreakFreeFromPlastic, Talk Fracking, CIEL (Center for International Environmental Law), WECF (Women Engage for a Common Future), Recycling Netwerk, Frack Free United, Greenpeace UK and Environmental Investigation Agency. This joint international objection comes on top of the ones submitted by Belgian grassroots groups and NGOs (such as Antwerpen Schaliegasvrij, StRaten Generaal and Greenpeace Belgium).
The international objection highlights the need to take the cumulative and transboundary climate and environmental effects into account, paying attention to the significant full lifecycle emissions along the supply chain. It states that no deforestation shall be allowed before any permitting decisions can be made on the ethane cracker and the PDH unit.
The signatories also refer to the ongoing plastic pellet pollution in protected Ramsar and Natura 2000 sites, and the absence of its management in the species and waste management plans.
“Apart from the fact that Ineos relies on climate hostile fracked US gas for their plans, we also see here a clear breach of the existing Natura 2000 legislation:, says Andy Gheorghiu, policy advisor and campaigner for Brussels based NGO Food & Water Europe. “The only way to solve the current massive virgin plastic pollution problem is to rein in the sources of such pollution, and that means stopping these facilities, not expanding them.”
“Ineos is a climate and environmental disaster — benefiting from fracking in the U.S. while planning to bring the dangerous practice to the United Kingdom and mainland Europe to produce more plastic waste,” said Scott Edwards, legal director of Food & Water Watch. “This company’s plans have been and will be met with a passionate, committed grassroots movement on both sides of the Atlantic. The Port of Antwerp must understand the additional high financial risk the relationship with Ineos represents.”
Joe Corré, founder of Talk Fracking, adds: “Every facility, like the proposed one by Ineos, that relies on fracked gas is a direct contribution to a dramatic increase in global warming, a constant production of plastic pollution and an involvement in human rights abuses along the supply chain. Everyone involved must be held responsible”.
“The #BreakFreeFromPlastic movement brings nearly 1,300 organisations around the world together to fight plastic pollution. INEOS are fuelling the plastics expansion with cheap plastics that will pollute our environment, but together we can put a stop to their polluting practices and expansion plans.” concludes Delphine Lévi Alvarès, coordinator of Break Free From Plastic in Europe. “The Port of Antwerp has already a massive transformational task to achieve. The investment plans of Ineos will torpedo every effort towards this necessary and existential process.”
Contacts:
Andy Gheorghiu, policy advisor and campaigner, Food & Water Europe
Mobile: 0049 160 20 30 974
Email: [email protected]
The individuals placed under arrest were a part of the ongoing protests of Ineos’ corporate sponsorship of the former Team Sky, which often include masks of CEO Jim Ratcliffe as a way to “unmask” the chemical company’s greenwashing efforts. Petrochemical giant Ineos imports climate destructive fracked gas for its virgin plastic production and has big plans to further expand this polluting business in Europe.
Food & Water Watch and Food & Water Europe see this arrest as a violation of basic rights guaranteed under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights and other protections of rights of expression and assembly.
It is also part of a troubling trend worldwide to punish protesters whose free speech harms the reputation of corporate entities like Ineos.
“My freedom was taken away simply because I wore a t-shirt to protest Ineos’ corporate sponsorship, and to highlight the company’s destructive impact on the climate,” said Gheorghiu. “I was told that I was being detained because of a fear I would ‘disrupt’ a team presentation for the Tour de France. Our intention was to distribute the masks and talk to people about the chemical company’s problematic sponsorship of the event. One police officer said that they know that ‘my organisation’ has done other things the police don’t like.”
In response to the arrests, Food & Water Watch and Food & Water Europe executive director, Wenonah Hauter, released the following statement:
“This arrest is not only a violation of our colleagues’ basic civil rights, but it is also a brazen display of state power to protect the reputation of a corporation and its owner, billionaire Jim Ratcliffe. It is he and his company that poses the threat to our climate and Europe’s safety and security, not peaceful protesters.
“This is part of a troubling trend in Europe, U.S. and beyond where peaceful environmental protests are increasingly being criminalized. Just last month, a UN Special Rapporteur on human rights warned that our basic liberties and rights are imperiled by increasing climate chaos. Every time a climate activist is arrested under sham pretenses, our rights erode a little further.
“We call for an immediate investigation into this arrest and the human rights violations it represents. We can’t let our institutions flout the rule of law and our democratic rights to protect billionaires and fossil fuel companies—or any company—from public scrutiny and peaceful protest.”
Contacts:
Food & Water Europe: Andy Gheorghiu, +49 160 20 30 974; [email protected]
Food & Water Watch (U.S.): Peter Hart, +1-732-839-0871; [email protected]
European Imports of U.S. Fracked Gas Up Nearly 300% Since Last Year
Brussels — As decision makers, industry and officials meet at the Madrid Forum to discuss the creation of an internal gas market in Europe, Food & Water Watch released a report showing that more than 700 U.S. facilities have been built or are planned to take advantage of cheap fracked U.S. gas. The Fracking Endgame: Locked Into Plastic, Pollution and Climate Chaos is the first survey of the extent to which the oil and gas industry, the petrochemical industry, and the electric power industry in the U.S. are building out fracked gas infrastructure to export liquefied natural gas (LNG), manufacture more plastics, and build gas-fired power plants.
The Food & Water Watch report follows on the heels of recent remarks by U.S. Department of Energy Officials calling LNG exports “molecules of U.S. freedom” and “freedom gas”.
“Trump’s so-called ‘Energy Dominance’ agenda is not just a domestic policy: it’s a foreign policy,” said Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch and Food & Water Europe. “Meanwhile, EU officials are working with the Trump administration to enrich energy cronies for something Europeans don’t need, and that will commit us to climate and plastic pollution. On top of that, they are diverting EU public money to build these import facilities. EU’s leaders are paving the way for U.S. energy dominance over Europe and a dangerous fossil lock-in.”
According to the European Commission, U.S. LNG exports to Europe have risen by 272% since July 2018. Many EU Member States currently import fracked US gas, while many have fracking bans on the books in their own countries. This is all despite the fact that Europe has not suffered gas shortages. The utilisation rate of all existing EU LNG terminals is – following calculations based on data from Gas Infrastructure Europe – at only about one quarter, clearly showing that any new investments in LNG infrastructure will almost inevitably create stranded assets.
Last month, over 200 groups in the U.S. and Europe called on their leaders to stop the Transatlantic LNG trade, saying it “torpedoes critical climate targets and violates basic human rights.”
The report notes that:
“We are seeing a Transatlantic lock-in of fossil fuels unfold before our eyes,” says Hauter. “And it won’t be the people of the U.S. or Europe that benefit: it will be the fossil fuel and plastic industry.”
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Read the Food & Water Watch report The Fracking End Game: Locked in to Plastics, Pollution and Climate Chaos
A short companion fact sheet can be found here.
Contacts:
Andy Gheorghiu, Policy Advisor & Campaigner, Food & Water Europe, Stechbahn 9, 34497 Korbach, Germany, email: [email protected]; mobile: +49 160 20 30 974
Frida Kieninger, Campaign Officer, Food & Water Europe, Rue d’Edimbourg 26, Brussels 1050, Belgium • email: [email protected]; +32 (0) 2893 1045; mobile: +32 487 24 99 05
