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ENVIRONMENT

Police detain Greta Thunberg at London climate protest

UK police on Tuesday removed Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg from a protest outside the energy sector's annual London get-together.

Published: 17 October 2023 15:27 CEST
Police detain Greta Thunberg at London climate protest
Environmental activist Greta Thunberg is taken away by police officers during a climate protest in London on Tuesday. Photo: AP Photo/Kin Cheung

The 20-year-old activist, who has become a key face of the movement to fight climate change, was taken away by two police officers and put into the back of a police van outside the Energy Intelligence Forum, an AFP photographer reported.

Joining a mass protest, Thunberg earlier slammed “closed door” agreements struck between politicians and representatives of the oil and gas industry.

“Behind these closed doors, spineless politicians are making deals and compromises with lobbyists from (the) destructive fossil fuel industry,” Thunberg told journalists outside the venue hosting the annual gathering, which runs until Thursday. 

Several hundred protestors gathered by the InterContinental London Park Lane hotel during the “Oily Money Out” demonstration, organised by pressure groups Fossil Free London and Greenpeace, blocking all entrances to the venue.

The carbon-intensive sector has faced fierce criticism from the green lobby for continuing to invest in dirty fossil fuels and worsen climate change — instead of accelerating the shift towards cleaner renewable energy.

“The world is drowning in fossil fuels. Our hopes and dreams and lives are being washed away by a flood of greenwashing and lies,” added Thunberg.

“It has been clear for decades that the fossil fuel industries were well aware of the consequences of their business models, and yet, they have done nothing.

“The opposite — they have actively delayed, distracted and denied the causes of the climate crisis and spread doubts about their own engagement in it,” she said.

Oil bosses

The gathering will be addressed on Tuesday by a host of industry bigwigs, including Shell chief executive Wael Sawan, his counterpart at French group TotalEnergies Patrick Pouyanne, and Saudi Aramco boss Amin Nasser.

Outside the forum, demonstrators banged drums and chanted “stop the oil, stop the gas” and “We are unstoppable, another world is possible”.

“I’ve got six grandchildren. I have nightmares about the future for them,” protestor Doro Marden told AFP.

Demonstrators argue that most industry profit is ploughed back into dirty energy that worsens climate change.

“Oil companies have racked up billions upon billions of profit, breaking records across the board last year. Oily CEOs took home multi-million pound pay cheques,” Fossil Free London said in a statement.

“The overwhelming majority of this money is going straight back into fossil fuel expansion, not the green energy they claim to support.”

Many participants were unable to access the gathering this morning, with five demonstrators arrested on suspicion of obstructing a highway and taken into custody, the Metropolitan Police said.

By AFP’s Oliver Devos

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ENVIRONMENT

Swedish government to scrap flight tax from next summer

Sweden's government has announced that it is abolishing the country's flight tax in its latest measure rolling back the environmental policies of the previous government.

Published: 3 September 2024 16:40 CEST
Swedish government to scrap flight tax from next summer

At a joint press conference with the far-right Sweden Democrats, Sweden’s prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, said that the tax had been an obstacle to Swedish competitiveness. 

“If you want to make sure of the ability to have good air connections and keep Sweden as an international hub, you must make sure not to discriminate against the very competitive advantage that Sweden has,” he said. “This is both in line with long-term climate policy and to protect the long country’s travel opportunities.” 

The flight tax was brought in back in 2018 by the previous government coalition of the Social Democrats and the Green Party, and was set at a deliberately low level, with the idea that it could then be successively raised. 

At the level it is set at this year, it adds about 76 kronor extra per passenger to a flight to Europe, about 315 kronor to a flight to the USA and about 504 kronor to a flight to Thailand. This year, it is expected to bring in total tax revenues of about 1.8 billion kronor. 

At the press conference, the government said that the tax would be scrapped entirely from July 1st next year. 

“We are doing this to promote air traffic across the country and to improve accessibility across the country. This will mean, quite simply, lower ticket prices,” the Sweden Democrats’ group leader, Linda Lindberg, said at the press conference. 

The government had previously considered halving the tax but has instead opted to abolish it. 

The country’s energy and business minister, Ebba Busch, brushed away the concerns that boosting air traffic would increase emissions. 

“As far as Sweden’s climate goals are concerned, it won’t make a huge amount of difference,” she said. “Our ambition is that this is going to increase the amount of air passengers which in the long run will mean more air traffic. This is going to affect climate emissions, but that’s something we’ll look at later on.”

Busch said that as most countries in the EU lacked a flight tax, it had been harming Sweden’s competitiveness. 

“This is extremely important for many companies and for large sections of Swedish industry — that we can keep our flight connections,” she said. “Only a minority of countries in the EU have a flight tax, so this has been a very tough competitive disadvantage for Sweden.”

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