This month, our climate camp was supposed to take place. While we are on a break, we are continuing to work with the Mossmorran Action Group to centre the struggles of communities close to fossil fuel infrastructure, and are marking this with a solidarity action this Sunday.
Across the country, we are staging protests at local offices of the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), who have stopped their monitoring at fossil fuel sites due to COVID-19, all while the Mossmorran site continues flaring, and oil & gas executives like Nicola Gordon sit on SEPA's board. We are demanding for SEPA:
- No conflicts of interests: SEPA should not have board members linked to the oil and gas industry or industries supporting fossil fuel infrastructure to ensure SEPAs regulatory independence. - Protect communities: Don’t use COVID to lower your standards - raise your regulatory standards to ensure protection of local communities living near fossil fuel infrastructure to cover all forms of pollution, and stop relying on self-reports from fossil fuel corporations. - Restore trust with communities: Establish an independent investigation into the Mossmorran plant as well as ExxonMobil and Shell's failure to run their operations safely. At the same time, we are asking The Scottish Government to shut down Mossmorran and to establish a community-led roundtable to plan a just transition for the site. We still need people to take part - especially if you can go and bring the flare to SEPA offices in more remote places like Dingwall, Elgin, Fraserhead, or Fort William. Here is the action briefing if you would like to take part: https://docs.google.com/…/1okAhDXQi-DzudwRE5fEXOK9wnZc…/edit If you can't protest in person, it would be great if you could participate in our twitter storm on Monday, to pressure government officials and civil servants into action: https://docs.google.com/…/1JTNZcxzynvAfjUlVeT3jPjfqbw…/edit… Let's use this opportunity to show solidarity with communities suffering the most under fossil fuel corporations in Scotland and beyond, and to force our institutions to hold Exxon and Shell to account.
In solidarity, Climate Camp Scotland
