At least three of the activists (two German, one American) plan to stay on the chimney throughout the entire two weeks of the Climate Summit, as a constant reminder to delegates gathered in Berlin of the real source of the problem of climate change: C02.
A total of 80 Greenpeace people are at the site. While stormy conditions this morning prevent the hanging of a banner to send a message to delegates: "Stop C02, Go Solar!", they expect to this to go up later today.
"While the climate diplomats from all over the world are talking in Berlin, we are pointing to the source of most C02: from the chimneys of the coal, oil and gas-fired power plants of industrialised countries," said Bill Hare of Greenpeace International in Berlin.
The RWE chimney has been chosen by Greenpeace to represent all the smokestacks of these global warming factories in the industrialised world which emit C02 and damage the climate. The industrialised countries are responsible for 75% of all C02 emissions worldwide. Coal is the largest source of C02 emissions, and brown coal is the dirtiest of all.
We are now seeing the surest ever signs of climate change. A 40 mile (65km) crack has appeared in the Larsen Ice Shelf in the Antarctic, which scientists say has not happened for the past 20,000 years and is due to a warming of 2.5 degrees. In the face of this evidence, Greenpeace demands the delegates in Berlin to adopt a Protocol which will commit these countries to cut C02 20% by 2005 at 1990 emission levels.
On the RWE site are 14 old brown-coal powered generators with a total production capacity of 12 billion kilowatt hours a yr. This 2000MW site alone pours 14 million tonnes of C02 into the atmosphere every year. The total annual emissions from RWE stations around Germany amounts to more than 120 million tonnes of C02.
This German electricity utility plans to open a new brown coal mine, Garzweiler II, and plans to invest 20billion DM (USD 13 billion) in the so-called "modernisation" of its coal fired power plants.
"RWE, like many of its counterparts around the world, is making the wrong investment and the German government is allowing it to do so. This money should be going directly into energy efficiency and alternative technologies such as solar or wind energy," said Hare.
For information on the Greenpeace action team in Frimmersdorf:
++49 172 381 8142;
in Berlin: ++49 30 304 1432/3 Fouad Hamdan/Cindy Baxter.
The climbers: Erhard S. and Gero L. from Germany and Dan R. from the United States joined a Greenpeace press conference in Berlin by satellite from 193m up the smokestack at Frimmersdorf near Cologne.
"We are up here to bear witness to the source of climate change. You know what the solutions are," they said to Governments. "You have the power to make the fossil fuels part of history and take us into a solar future. We are staying here until the end of the Summit - waiting for you to save us from the climate catastrophe."
Dr Oliver Worm from Greenpeace Germany noted the opening remarks by German environment minister Angela Merkel. "According to Mrs Merkel she is very concerned at the threat to the small island states from climate change. She appears to know about the effects and says that there is no need to wait for further scientific confirmation of climate change before governments take action on real reductions. Therefore Germany along with all developed countries must now cut their own C02 emissions by 20% by 2005, as the AOSIS Protocol proposes. As the chair of the Climate Summit, Mrs Merkel is responsible for ensuring that this meeting adopts the protocol."
"The German Government has promised much, done little and, if it wants to take the role of leadership, must act now."
Recent months have seen the most substantive confirmation to date that climate change has already begun. The most alarming evidence to date is the recent report of a 65 km (40 mile) long crack in the Larsen Ice Shelf in Antarctica -- according to scientists probably the first time this has happened in 20,000 years and the result of a 2.5 deg C warming.
"What more evidence do these governments need before they will face up to taking decisions to cut C02?" asked the activists on the chimney. "Right now they are only arguing about the rules, and most are going backwards."
Greenpeace endorsed the proposal of a Protocol from the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), a group of low-lying island states who stand to lose the most in the face of rising sea levels.
Some governments' own commitments are the same as this proposal --cutting C02 20% by 2005 -- some even better, yet there is still no agreement to even start negotiating such an instrument.
Greenpeace looks to the European Union to take a leadership role in getting a protocol in place. The EU Council of Environment Ministers has actually drafted the elements for a negotiating mandatefor such a protocol, to be agreed by the meeting. Meanwhile other industrialised countries -- particularly the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, appear determined to actively block its progress.
"It is up to the developed world, which produces 75% of the world's man-made C02 emissions, to make these cuts, and to help developing countries make the switch to renewable forms of energy, such as solar energy," said Kirsty Hamilton of Greenpeace International.
Greenpeace today produced the 1994/95 update of the "Climate Time Bomb", a catalogue of the latest climatic events since 1990 which are warnings of what is to come as greenhouse pollution accelerates.
Global temperatures in 1994 were the third warmest on record.
In the North Pacific, 80% of zooplankton, at the bottom of the marine food chain, have been lost, and scientists point to the warming of the oceans from climate change as the only possible explanation.
Temperatures in Antarctica have risen 2.5 deg C this century.
Scientists fear the crack in the ice shelf, and the huge iceberg which is double the size of Berlin, is an early warning of much larger changes to come in Antarctica which could increase sea-level faster than previously estimated.
For information on the Greenpeace action team in Frimmersdorf:
++49 172 381 8142;
in Berlin: ++49 30 304 1432/3 Fouad Hamdan/Cindy Baxter.
The three climbers have been 130m up on the brown coal-fired power station chimney at the Frimmersdorf site near Cologne since early Monday morning despite snow, rain, hail and force 8 gales. At 0030 hrs local time private "cleanup commandos" cordoned off and secured the area around the smokestack, and climbed it, in an attempt to reach the platform holding the climbers but stopped just 2 metres short.
For an hour the three Greenpeace climbers argued that if the RWE guards came any closer the climbers would go further up the smokestack and lock themselves to the fixed metal ladder where the guards would have to remove them. The discussion with RWE was documented live by the three climbers and broadcasted.
Greenpeace later checked with local police who knew absolutely nothing about the RWE security guard actions under the cover of darkness.
"Just as RWE endangers people through their CO2 emissions, they tonight endangered the lives of the three non-violent Greenpeace climbers, who are simply here to remind the world and the delegates at the Climate Summit of the source of the problem of climate change," said American Dan R. from the chimney.
"We will carry on our protest against climate killer RWE. Out of the Frimmersdorf site alone 14 million tonnes of C02 are pouring each year."
In the future, RWE plans to neglect the environment by opening a new brown coal mine, Garzweiler II, and plans to invest 20billion DM (USD 13 billion) in the so-called "modernisation" of its coal fired power plants. Ironically it is trying to put on a good public relations image at the Climate Summit with a photovoltaic display, but its real money is still pouring into C02 emissions.
Greenpeace demands that the Climate Summit, as a first step, agrees to developed country C02 cuts of 20% by 2005, as proposed by the Alliance of Small Island States.
For information: In Frimmersdorf: ++49 172 381 8142;
in Berlin: ++49 30 304 1432/3 Fouad Hamdan/Cindy Baxter
NOTE: You can interview the climbers by phone: contact us!
German Utility Rwe Sues Greenpeace
Amid New Signs Of Climate Change
Meanwhile Greenpeace in Berlin released yet more evidence that climate change may already be here -- a report showing that there has been an increase in rain and flooding in Europe and the United States which is entirely consistent with global warming - and we are likely to get more of it if C02 emissions are not reduced.
"Not us but RWE should be sued - for its breach of the future security of the global climate," said activist Dan R. from the USA. "Given that my country has suffered terrible floods in the past two years, and this new report says we will see more of them, we demand that RWE starts talks with Greenpeace about its energy policy here at the action site at Frimmersdorf."
The climbers will stay on the 193m high smokestack of the brown coal power plant until the end of the Climate Conference on April 7, to draw attention to power stations worldwide as a major source of climate killer carbon dioxide (CO2).
Observations of records around the world show a general increase in rainfall which is what climate models projected, says the report "Climate Change and River Flooding", written for Greenpeace by Professor Pier Vellinga of Amsterdam Free University. The flooding report, using existing climate data and computer modelling, finds evidence that increases in rain and river flow, consistent with global warming, have already occurred.
Northern Europe is likely to experience a 10-20% increase in rainfall during winter months by 2070. Indeed, in Bavaria in southern Germany, rainfall increased by 40% between 1960 and 1990. But while Northern Europe can expect more floods, arid areas, such as Southern Europe and North Africa, will probably experience a decrease in rainfall, the report says. The amount of rainfall in Canada and the USA has increased by 7.6% from 1891 to 1990 and one study from 14 stations in Germany showed that runoff from rainfall was 26% higher after 1964 than before, it says.
"The prospect of wetter winters and increased flood damage is already sending ripples through the insurance industry. The industrialised world must agree to serious reductions in CO2 to avoid the financial and human costs of increased flooding," said Bill Hare, head of Greenpeace International's delegation in Berlin. "Yet the Climate Summit is still not moving towards serious consideration of the Alliance of Small Island States' Protocol which proposes industrialised country C02 cuts of 20% by 2005. Here we see another sign that climate change has already arrived," he said.