Campaigners from Fossil Free London disrupted the New Statesman’s Politics Live event on Wednesday 20 November, calling out the magazine for its hypocrisy over the climate crisis.
New Statesman Live: fossil fuel enablers
The Politics Live event brought politicians and experts together to discuss the UK’s “green future” yet it was sponsored by Offshore Energies UK, the leading trade association for the oil and gas sector nationally.
Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) members include major global fossil fuel companies like Shell, ExxonMobil, and Equinor. The group’s purpose is to advocate for government policies that favour the interests of oil and gas corporations.
Exxon, for example, is a serial offender. As the Canary previously reported, ExxonMobil, formed in a 1999 merger between Exxon and Mobil Oil, has faced accusations for years that it knew about the threat of global warming decades ago.
Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times first revealed in 2015 that ExxonMobil was aware for a long time that climate change was real and was the result of human activity.
The company is the target of a number of lawsuits in the United States, several of which are ongoing. The phrase “Exxon Knew” was a prominent part of an activist campaign and is regularly used on social media in efforts to hold the company to account. Meanwhile, the European Parliament and US Congress have held hearings into the oil behemoth.
Moreover, Exxon knew the solution to the issue some 30 years ago, namely a national tax on emissions of greenhouse gases
Chat shit, get banged
OEUK’s directors publicly advocate for exploring and developing new oil and gas fields, contradicting warnings from climate scientists, the International Energy Agency, the IPCC and the UN that expansion of fossil fuel production is incompatible with a safe climate.
Joanna Warrington, campaigner with Fossil Free London, said:
The New Statesman are playing lip service to action on the climate crisis. They talk the talk with environmental newsletters and conferences discussing Net Zero but behind the scenes they are taking funding from the oil and gas lobby.
Just like politicians, journalists and media outlets need to stand up to the oil and gas industry, reject their dirty money and stop enabling their greenwashing.
Oil and gas lobbyists like Offshore Energies UK that pollute our politics and push our climate closer to collapse have no place in the “independent” and “progressive” journalism The New Statesman supposedly prides themselves in.
The event was also disrupted by the action group, Climate Resistance, calling out Government subsidising of the Drax power plant.
Featured image via Fossil Free London
