$450 million in US ‘development’ finance for fracking in Patagonia
Sep 12, 2019
The US development finance corporation OPIC has just loaned $450 million to a large fracking project in Argentinian Patagonia – despite objections from eight US senators, Indigenous rights concerns, and the climate crisis. The two loans will fund Vista Oil & Gas and Aleph Midstream (respectively sister company and subsidiary to London-listed Riverstone Energy) to...
Government issues nearly £2 bn for fossil fuels abroad… and 0.0005 as much for renewables
Jul 3, 2019
New data shows: last year the UK government supported oil, gas and coal projects in other countries to a tune of £1.8 billion – through UK Export Finance (UKEF), a government department that purports to support UK businesses operating elsewhere. We’ve analysed UKEF’s annual list of loans and financial guarantees, and here’s some of the...
Of Turmeric and Truth – ‘Fuel for Thought’ and the struggle in Ogoni
Jun 12, 2019
This blog is co-authored by Andy Rowell (Oil Change International) and James Marriott (Platform) Lazarus Tamana, Europe Coordinator of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), holds up a small round plastic container, an inch deep, two inches across. It is filled with a rich yellow-ochre coloured powder. “This was grown...
Singing Planet – Soundcamp 2019 and the Platform ‘Tree of Life’ Tent
May 25, 2019
Everywhere is the city. And everywhere is not the city. A small congregation, just a dozen of us, are guided in careful-footed silence along the central path through the cathedral of Russia Dock Woodland in London’s former Docklands. It is 04.30 am on 5th May. Our guides, John Cadera and Richard Page-Jones, draw our attention...
Comunicado: No al fracking por empresas británicas en Patagonia
May 22, 2019
En el día de hoy, una delegación de representantes del gobierno y del sector empresarial argentino se encuentra en Londres para tratar inversiones en fracking. Argentina Solidarity Campaign, Reclaim the Power y Fossil Free London se reúnen para oponerse a la expansión del fracking en Argentina, y al rol de las empresas y el gobierno...
Statement: don’t frack Patagonia
May 22, 2019
Today a delegation of Argentinian officials and businesses is in London to talk about fracking investments. Argentina Solidarity Campaign, Reclaim the Power, and Fossil Free London are coming together to protest the expansion of fracking in Argentina and the role of the UK Government and British companies in this venture. From Lancashire to Sussex communities...
North Sea oil: The unmentionable climate emergency scandal… until now
May 15, 2019
We’re in a climate emergency – so why is the UK aiming to extract 20 more billions of barrels of oil?! Our research, out today, shows just how far out of touch with reality this plan is – and what the UK needs to do instead, not only to protect the climate, but also workers’...
Compelled to Be Wise in the Tent that Can Hear
May 10, 2019
This is a Guest Blog by Will Essilfie, educator and researcher, on Platform’s event ‘The Tent that Can Hear‘. In this event, Platform looked back at ecological issues in London in 1989 when we made the ‘Tree of Life, City of Life’ project, and forward to 2049. This was a 30th anniversary return as the...
Of Plastics and Brexit – the struggle against the new lords of oil & gas
Apr 4, 2019
On 16th January 2019 news was leaked through the German paper Handelsblatt of The Alliance to End Plastic Waste. A new industrial coalition that will invest $1billion over the next five years in a campaign to reduce the amount of plastic waste in the world. Here was a powerful body of major corporations determining to...
Volunteering on ‘London Divests’ – guest blog
Mar 25, 2019
This blog is by Freya Brindley Rowell who was on placement with Platform in March. She is about to go to university. Nervous, anxious and excited were all things I was feeling as I headed to London to volunteer at Platform. As a person that grew up in the countryside, just navigating my way through...
Iraq, BP and the British Museum – look upon these works and hang our heads in shame
Mar 14, 2019
I had read in advance the briefing that Culture Unstained had put out to accompany the planned action. The protest at the British Museum was to be against BP’s sponsorship of the exhibition ‘I am Ashurbanipal: king of the world, king of Assyria’, a display of treasures from the land of Iraq. I read lines...
Hopes and fears in the climate of change….
Mar 5, 2019
I have been involved in various climate campaigns and research projects for the last 10 years and have often found myself in rooms full of well meaning, reasonably wealthy, middle aged white people. They are usually the Heads of Sustainability or Corporate Responsibility in their places of work – banks, local authorities, consultancies, funding...
