YOUNG ACTIVIST SCALES GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT AND COVERS IN ORANGE PAINT CALLING FOR AN END TO TREE BURNING SUBSIDIES

Apr 27, 2022

At 7am this morning a member of Axe Drax covered the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) in bright orange paint using a modified fire extinguisher, hanging banners banners that read “Stop Burning Trees” and “Rise Up for Reparations”. He has now scaled the entrance. This is the beginning of a series of protests today against Drax Group on their annual general meeting, as campaigners gather in Liverpool, Leeds, York, Hull and outside Drax’s AGM in London.

Just weeks after Extinction Rebellion scientists targeted BEIS for their financing of fossil fuels, Axe Drax is here to demonstrate that it’s renewable policies are dangerously harmful too. They give huge amounts of subsidies to the ecocidal biomass industry, particularly Drax Power Station. By 2027 the biomass industry as a whole will have received £13billion in renewable subsidies, and £10billion of that has gone directly to Drax. BEIS is funding pollution and destruction around the world.

Drax is the UKs single largest carbon emitter, yet received £832 million in renewable subsidies last year which is more than £2 million per day. In the last year they were removed from the Green Energy Index, despite this, they continue to receive huge amounts of renewable subsidies. Biomass is one of the most carbon intensive forms of biofuel, yet this is ignored by politicians so Drax can be called the main supplier of ‘renewable energy’ in the UK.

The criminal injustice of Drax fills me with despair and needs to stop. Drax power station is accelerating the climate crises, whilst being labelled as the solution, costing taxpayers in their energy bills and is in court with the HSE for their work conditions. There are so many layers of injustice in this, it’s surreal they still receive public money. The government energy strategy must see through the bullshit of Drax and cancel the funding.

  • The person who doused the department building in paint

Axe Drax is calling on the government to:

  1. Tell the Truth: Governments and corporations must be honest: biomass causes irreparable damage to the health of people and our life support systems. It is not a clean source of fuel, it is time to stop the greenwashing.
  2. Defund Biomass: Remove the £billions in subsidies given to Drax and other biomass power stations around the UK. This money is used to fund death and destruction around the world, harming POC and poorer communities the most whilst corporations profit. If we stop the money we stop the train of destruction.
  3. Fund Community Solutions: The £billions given to biomass should be used to fund a just transition: furlough, retrain and transfer workers in the biomass industry; invest in education, affordable housing and health; fund genuine renewable energy; develop a plan of degrowth moving away from profit motives fuelling the climate crisis towards community based solutions.

In the BEIS November 2021 Biomass Policy Statement, they suggest that biomass has a core role to play in decarbonisation. Per unit of energy generated, biomass is worse than coal, producing 40-60% more carbon than modern coal stations. We cannot allow this inefficient and destructive form of fuel to continue being classed as renewable. Research has demonstrated that it takes 40-100 years to reabsorb the carbon emitted from burning trees for fuel. The most recent IPCC report suggests that we have 3-4 years to avert climate catastrophe, 100 years is a death sentence.

We are looking at millions of people dying at an increasing rate across the global south, and communities are directly being harmed now by the insane biomass industry that this government funds. By 2027 Drax will have received £10billion in renewable subsidies, coming straight out of our fuel bills and given to them by BEIS. This is a disgusting misuse of public money. We have to stop burning trees now.

  • Rosie, 24, another member of Axe Drax involved

Drax is currently asking for more public money to fund BECCS, which is estimated to cost over £31billion. BECCS has never been shown to work on the scale required to make biomass carbon neutral. Even if BECCS did work, studies have found that demand for biomass would increase to such a degree that we would face global food shortages and desertification. BEIS cannot continue funding climate catastrophe.

Axe Drax and many other groups have been peacefully campaigning against biomass for years. We have signed petitions, written letters, held protests, lobbied decision makers, but this destructive industry is being allowed to continue funded by public money. Harm is being felt right now by the BIPOC people on the front lines of Drax’s business of destruction. Our climate is on the brink of tipping points that would put every society at risk of collapse, with those in the global south already feeling disastrous, irreparable loss of and damage to life, home, stability and knowledge.

ENDS

NOTES FOR EDITORS

The Reuters Sustainability Awards, which features amongst others, tobacco companies, mining companies, and the UK’s biggest carbon emitter, Yorkshire power station Drax, is being accused of ‘Greenwashing’ by environmental activists who disrupted the ceremony in Central London.

The Reuters Sustainability Awards are meant to ‘celebrate leadership in sustainable businesses’; but the finalists included over 100 companies with questionable environmental and human rights records. Companies paid Reuters £500-1000 to enter into the awards, and then a further minimum of £8000 to attend the event.

Finalists included; Selby based Biofuel giant Drax, who are the UKs biggest carbon emitter1 and recently faced £25m of OFGEM fines over misreporting in its supply chains2; Holcim Ltd, whose subsidiary paid Isis millions during Syria’s civil war to keep its concrete factories open3, Aris Mining who are suing the country of Colombia because of community unionsation4, and Fortescue, the Australian mining giant who were sued for mining on Aboriginal land5 and recently welcomed the disastrous former Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng as an advisor6. Other nominees include Amazon, Mars, and the Tobacco giant Philip Morris International. Virgin Atlantic were nominated for an award for their ‘Sustainable Aviation Fuel’ project, which recent reporting showed to be linked to deforestation7.

Activists unfurled a banner above the entrance to the Central London venue, reading ‘Welcome To The Greenwashing Awards”, and handed out ‘Certificates of Greenwashing’ to participants, which listed some of the abuses on the back. 

Polly Hallam, from campaigning group Axe Drax, said: 

“What we are seeing here is an example of the very same multinationals who are guilty of perpetuating the climate crisis pretending to have green credentials to distract us from their environmental and human rights abuses. They pay money to get a badge for press releases and websites in order to launder their reputation. These awards distract us from the real work needed to rapidly decarbonise and get on track to solving the catastrophe that continues to unfold.”

Sam Simons from Climate Resistance said:

“Big polluters are using their political influence to stonewall climate action and protect their own short-term profits. Drax, the UK’s single largest carbon emitter, donated £12,000 to Labour and sponsored their party conference, in order buy influence and protect their dirty business. We face a climate crisis – only last month, huge swathes of Europe were underwater. Yet these companies are more focused on laundering their reputations rather than stopping the actual harmful practices that are contributing to the problem.”

————————————

ENDS

Axe Drax
Axe Drax is a UK based grassroots network that actively opposes Drax through disruptive direct action. We campaign for an end to Drax’s subsidies, due to the environmental, societal and planetary impacts of burning trees for energy. We are building a broad based network, working in solidarity with frontline communities to effectively confront the environmentally destructive biomass industry and the social and economic forces driving climate change. 

Drax
Drax Power Station, located near Selby in Yorkshire, is the world’s biggest woody biomass power station and the UK’s single largest carbon emitter. Drax sources from around the world, primarily the US, Canada, and the Baltic States. Drax’s wood pellet production sites, predominantly located in environmental justice communities, emit large amounts of pollutants, such as PM10, PM2.5 and VOCs which are linked to respiratory and pulmonary health impacts. Woody biomass is counted as carbon neutral by the UK Government, allowing Drax to receive renewable energy subsidies (CfDs and ROCs). 

Website: axedrax.uk

Social Media: axe_drax

 

Notes for Editors: More information on environmental and human rights record of nominated companies are available on request. 

Spokes available on request. 

Photos and videos: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1QZlyHEuFR8lYCzPMG5po37g7Ohb_J0ud?usp=sharing

References: 

1. https://ember-climate.org/insights/research/drax-co2-emissions-biomass/

2. https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/news/ofgem-closes-investigation-drax-power-limited

3. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/17/french-cement-company-lafarge-paid-millions-to-islamic-state-syria

4. https://www.iisd.org/itn/en/2022/03/30/the-conflict-between-traditional-miners-in-marmato-and-canadian-transnational-mining-companies-another-isds-dispute-over-natural-resources-in-colombia/

5. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/aug/27/pilbara-native-title-case-the-fight-to-decide-if-fortescue-pays-compensation-to-indigenous-owners

6. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/aug/31/former-uk-chancellor-who-crashed-the-pound-to-advise-fortescue-from-october

7. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/virgin-atlantic-world-first-transatlantic-net-zero-flight-saf-sustainable-aviation-fuel-cop28/