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Of Plastics and Brexit – the struggle against the new lords of oil & gas
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…
4 Apr 2019 james -
Volunteering on ‘London Divests’ – guest blog
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…
25 Mar 2019 jane -
Hopes and fears in the climate of change….
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…
5 Mar 2019 admin -
Silence in the Storm – Business and No Deal Brexit
The storm in Westminster rages so ferociously that at times it’s hard to hear ourselves think. There is second by second coverage of the House of Commons and Downing Street from every conceivable angle. Backbenchers so obscure that we’ve never heard of them before are dragged through the TV studios and closely cross-questioned. Others…
28 Feb 2019 james -
‘The Knowledge Quarter’ – resistance to capture and divestment from capital
In the Autumn I attended an utterly inspiring Shake! & Stuart Hall Foundation event – the launch of the Black Cultural Activism Map. It was held at the Platform theatre space in the Central Saint Martin’s art school – CSM – part of University of the Arts London. This new premises is a vast warehouse of…
24 Jan 2019 james -
PHOTOS: ‘Fracking rig’ & 10-metre projection protests fossil fuel finance on doorstep of UK government export body
Contact: Eliana Harrigan, Fossil Free London, +44 7541507517. Anna Markova, Platform, [email protected], +447942044472 Images available, credit Alban Grosdidier. As G20 governments gear up for their summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the climate talks are set to get underway in Katowice, the UK’s export finance department (UKEF) was hit by protests yesterday over its financing of oil…
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To Bruce Mackenzie – For these and future memories
In the flurry of a Tuesday afternoon, I receive an unexpected e-mail from Vicki Carroll. The header has your name in it Bruce, and I know instinctively within an instant what the message holds. I hover a while and then open the text to read the inevitable. You have stepped over, passed through the…
27 Nov 2018 james -
UK government spends aid money on promoting fracking
News just in: the UK is spending its official development aid funds to promote fracking abroad. The Foreign Office financed two projects in China to “export UK expertise in shale gas development”, aiming to create “an improved business environment” for UK companies. Our research, released today in collaboration with Friends of the Earth and Christian…
18 Nov 2018 anna -
Report: Foreign Office spends aid budget on ‘promoting fracking’ abroad
0.01am 19 November Research released by Platform today [1] reveals that Foreign Office spent funds from the UK’s Official Development Aid budget to promote shale gas drilling in China, as well as supporting expansion of oil and gas industries in Brazil, Mexico, India, and Myanmar. Foreign Office ran 16 strategic projects to expand fossil fuel industries…
