Nigeria - ERA/FoEN, groups rally to kick polluters out of climate talks

Nigeria - ERA/FoEN, groups rally to kick polluters out of climate talks

 

Lagos, Nigeria- Today, the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) joins hundreds of groups rallying globally to demand delegates at next month’s Climate talks in Marrakech, Morocco, take urgent action to protect the UN Climate Treaty meetings from fossil fuel industry interference.

ERA/FoEN alongside several civil society groups marched on Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL) premises in Lagos demanding the corporation be held accountable for various infractions, including the Parabe platform incident in Ondo State in 1998 for which locals are yet to get justice.

The event is part of the October global days of action, Reclaim Power, in more than 50 countries calling for a more just and sustainable energy system and for policymakers to end the undue influence and obstruction of climate policy by transnational fossil fuel corporations.

Ilaje youths in a peaceful protest against the environmental and social impacts of Chevron’s activities on their land were shot and killed by soldiers allegedly hired, transported and paid by Chevron even after the demonstrators had negotiated an agreement. Two protesters were killed, one shot in the back. Many others were arrested and tortured.

The incident necessitated a suit filed in 1999 at the San Francisco district court by survivors and representatives of the communities for torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), a U.S. law that permits foreign citizens to bring civil suits in the United States courts for human rights violations committed outside the U.S. Bowoto and others also brought claims for wrongful death and assault and battery under both Nigerian and California law and appealed this case after the jury found in favor of defendants on all charges.

The company was however absolved by a US district court which, on December 1, 2008, delivered a complete defense verdict for Chevron. On September 10, 2010 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a jury verdict in favor of Chevron Corporation. Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL) from complicity in the matter.

“The Paris Agreement swings the door wide open to interference from industries that want nothing else than to stop progress” said Godwin Ojo, ERA/FoEN Executive Director “By virtue of the manipulation of the suit instituted by the Ilaje community, we can see how Chevron and its partners may also manipulate the talks to keep business going as usual. If we are to keep warming below 1.5 degrees, we must first ensure Big Oil and it’s dirty drilling friends are not writing the rules.”

Today’s action demanded that leaders advance the movement within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to protect its negotiations from the influence of the fossil fuel industry and other dirty industries. Government leaders first raised the issue last May in Bonn, Germany. 

“It’s now clearer than ever that the fossil fuel industry and those representing its interests have one goal: self-preservation,” said Tamar Lawrence-Samuel, climate organizer at Corporate Accountability International. “Big Polluters, like Big Tobacco before it, must be cast out of the policymaking process meant to rein it in.”

Currently, the UNFCCC permits access to business groups like the US Chamber of Commerce, BusinessEurope, and the International Emissions Trading Association whose members include some of the largest fossil fuel corporations in the world, including Exxon Mobil. Such groups could seek to delay, water down or redirect negotiations toward the interests of their members.

Yet, as negotiators pointed out at the last meeting of the UNFCCC, the treaty has no policy for addressing such conflicts of interest, leaving the entire process vulnerable to the lobbying might of fossil fuel interest groups. At those meetings, for the first time in UNFCCC history, countries representing nearly 70 percent of the world’s population banded together in support of a policy to address conflicts of interest.

This year, the UNFCCC meetings in Marrakech will run parallel to meetings of the World Health Organization’s Global Tobacco Treaty in India. That treaty, which came into force in 2005, cemented into international law provisions to protect international regulations from the interference of the very industry it regulates.

To view the petition, go to www.KickBigPollutersOut.org