Climate activists urge companies to enable energy transition
CE Noticias Financieras
Davos, Switzerland, 19 Jan. Four leading climate activists, including Sweden's Greta Thunberg and Ecuador's Helena Gualinga, urged CEOs of fossil fuel energy companies from Davos not to open new extraction sites and to stop blocking the clean energy transition. "This cease and desist notice is to demand that you immediately stop opening any new oil, gas or coal extraction sites, and stop blocking the clean energy transition we all so urgently need," they state in an open letter also signed by Uganda's Vanessa Nakate and Germany's Luisa Neubauer, all of whom are present at the Davos Forum. In the message, which they have shared on social networks and which already has more than 850,000 signatures, they accuse the big oil companies of knowing "for decades that fossil fuels cause catastrophic climate change". Also of "misleading the public about climate science and risks" and also misleading "politicians with misinformation, sowing doubts and causing delays". For all these reasons, they call on the executives concerned to put an end to these activities as "a direct violation" of the human right "to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, and their duty to protect the rights of indigenous peoples". And they warn: "If you do not act immediately, be aware that citizens around the world will consider taking any legal action to hold you accountable. And we will continue to protest in the streets in large numbers." Greta Thunberg is in Davos to coincide with the World Economic Forum, which brings together political and business elites, after being evicted on Tuesday in Germany by police in a protest action in the Lützerath area of the Rhineland-Palatinate state. "Climate protection is not a crime," justified Thunberg afterwards, who together with several dozen activists were complaining about the expansion of the Gatzweiler lignite mine.