In the last three weeks, over 500 ordinary people from 14 countries across Europe, North America and Africa have been engaged in a campaign of civil resistance at international airports. People from 22 different civil resistance groups have united in support of one demand – a Fossil Fuel Treaty to end oil, gas and coal by 2030.
Flights, passengers and journeys have been severely disrupted as action takers glued themselves to tarmac, stood up in aeroplanes, glued and locked on at departure gates and held placards in airport terminals. There have been 144 arrests at 31 different international airports, with 14 people still held in prison on remand in the UK.
Today Oil Kills is announcing a pause in our international collaborative actions to allow time for politicians to consider our demands. But this is not the end, the fight will go on. We remain in civil resistance against our murderous governments and the criminal elites who are threatening the survival of humanity.
The facts are clear, we are flying towards the obliteration of everything we know and love. Continuing to extract and burn oil, gas and coal is an act of war against humanity. It will kill hundreds of millions of people, adding to the already mounting global death toll from climate breakdown. It will push our climate, oceans and the living world beyond the point of no return, triggering runaway global heating and setting in motion an unstoppable process of global societal collapse.
To know these facts and yet to have no plan to end the extraction and burning of oil, gas and coal is reckless and immoral. Our politicians are complicit in the greatest crime in human history. Whether those in charge realise that they are engaging in genocide, is not the question. For this is how it will be seen by the next generation and all future generations.
So for now we are taking a pause, but governments must take heed: you cannot arrest your way out of this, just as you cannot imprison a flood or serve injunctions on a wildfire. If you continue to ignore the looming reality, if you fail to protect the public from what is coming, then ordinary people will continue to take matters into their own hands to do what you have failed to do. We will act to protect humanity by stopping the machine that is causing us harm – the global fossil economy.
To the public we say it is time to face reality: no one is coming to save us. There is no free pass, no shelter from the coming storm. Our best chance of survival is to resist. To join the growing numbers of ordinary, everyday people, from across the globe who are refusing to stand by while hundreds of millions of innocent people are murdered.
The climate crisis will not end until every single country has phased out fossil fuels, but those who bear the greatest responsibility and have the greatest capacity must do the most. As citizens of wealthy countries based in the global north, we continue to demand that our governments stop extracting and burning oil, gas and coal by 2030 and that they support and finance other countries to make a fast, fair and just transition.
In this time of crisis, we expect our governments to work collaboratively, as we have done, and negotiate a Fossil Fuel Treaty to end the war on humanity before we lose everything.
ENDS
Press contact:+44 7762 987334
Press email: [email protected]
High-quality images & video here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1JPirDH2_rF9M47r7_UWldjOJuvvw95wE?usp=sharing
Website: https://oilkills.org/
Twitter: https://x.com/_oilkills
Groups supporting the international uprising to end fossil fuels:
Students Against EACOP, Uganda [email protected]
Just Stop Oil, UK [email protected] +44 7762 987334
Letzte Generation Austria [email protected] +43 680 4027795
Letzte Generation Germany [email protected] +493023591611
XR Netherlands [email protected] +31642020897
DROP Fossil Subsidies, Switzerland [email protected] +41 77 486 59 46
Act Now, Switzerland [email protected] +41 79 727 99 29
Last Generation Canada [email protected] +15144304545
Folk Mot Fossilmakta, Norway [email protected] +47 48416001
XR Boston [email protected] +1 (941) 809-8189
XR Finland [email protected]
Futuro Vegetal, Spain [email protected] +34 687558436 (English, French, Italian, German, Spanish)
Scientist Rebellion, Sweden [email protected]
Extinction Rebellion, Sweden [email protected]
A22 Network, [email protected]
Stay Grounded, International [email protected] +351912656904
Notes to editors:
[1] Oil Kills is an international uprising to end fossil fuels – an unprecedented coalition of civil resistance groups from over 10 countries across Europe and North America. We are taking nonviolent collective action at airports – a key pillar of the fossil fuel economy – to demand an end to oil, gas and coal by 2030.
Our demand in full: Our governments must work together to establish a legally binding treaty to stop extracting and burning oil, gas and coal by 2030 as well as supporting and financing poorer countries to make a fast, fair, and just transition.
This can be accomplished by endorsing the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative and seeking a negotiating mandate to establish the treaty.
Our recruiting, training, and capacity building is supported by the Climate Emergency Fund, which strategically supports ultra-ambitious organisations demanding solutions to the climate crisis at emergency speed.
Safety notice: Supporters receive training in nonviolence and will undertake all possible steps to ensure that our actions do not compromise the safety of those using airports, as well as those in the air. This includes avoiding going on any active or inactive runways.
[2] The Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative is a diplomatic initiative working with a global network of thousands of civil society organisations and first mover governments who are spurring international cooperation to end new development of fossil fuels, phase out existing production within the agreed climate limit of 1.5°C and develop plans to support workers, communities and countries dependent on fossil fuels to create secure and healthy livelihoods.
[3] Stay Grounded is a network of 200 initiatives to counter aviation for a just mobility system. They stand up against greenwashing climate strategies like carbon offsetting and the largely illusory promise of so-called Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF).4] A22 Network is an international network racing to save humanity. We have a recipe for effective civil resistance. Support us. Join us. You are needed.