/ 24 June 2011

Kumi Naidoo feels Arctic heat

Kumi Naidoo Feels Arctic Heat

Kumi Naidoo, the South African head of Greenpeace International, has been banned from Greenland for a year after he was deported from that country this week.

Naidoo spent five days in a Greenland prison for climbing on to an oil rig in the Arctic owned by the Scottish oil exploration company Cairn Energy. He carried with him a petition with 50 000 signatures calling for Cairn to release its oil-spill response plan, which it has refused to do.

Last Friday, Naidoo left the Greenpeace ship, the Esperanza, to reach the rig, which is 120km off the coast of Greenland.

According to Ben Stewart, Greenpeace spokesperson on the ship, Cairn employees used water cannons to spray water down the 30m ladder that Naidoo was climbing. He made it to the top and spent 90 minutes on the platform before being arrested and flown to land by a Danish navy helicopter. He was charged with trespassing and breaching a security zone.

“I’m not sure why a navy helicopter would be involved in preventing an action against a private company,” Stewart said. “But the relationships between governments and oil companies is way too close.”

He said that Africa and the Arctic were “immediately linked through climate change”.

“They are two regions that face the fastest rising temperatures. Kumi [Naidoo] said that as an African man he had to come to the Arctic, which is suffering the same kinds of changes that Africa is destined to suffer this century.”

From his prison cell, Naidoo wrote: “As an African I care about what’s happening in the Arctic because scientists say that the unprecedented warming up here could have grave knock-on consequences for vulnerable people across the world.

“A warming Arctic could dramatically change weather patterns many thousands of miles away. Africans have many reasons to be concerned about the failure of governments to regulate the oil industry and about the failure of companies to heed the warning signs of a warming world.”

Most oil companies make public their oil-spill response plans, but Cairn has kept its under wraps. Activists claim that this is because there are none — it would be impossible to clean up a spill in the Arctic.

Naidoo added: “South Africa has both the opportunity and responsibility this year to lead on climate change, to represent those who will be and are being fastest and hardest hit by climate change. As host of the UN Climate Conference, COP17, in Durban at the end of the year, the government needs to do more than just talk a good game —

“The South African government needs to take urgent action to improve the uptake of clean, safe and renewable energy sources. It needs to divest from fossil fuels and abandon its absurd plans for nuclear power.”