Having met up at silly o’clock in the morning and gathered together banners, rope and ‘Danger, Global Warming’ hazard tape, we arrived at the Jet petrol station on Dereham Road only to find 8 of Norfolk’s finest lying in wait. Ignoring them, we unpacked our banners and stretched them across the three entrances, preventing vehicles from filling up. Passing motorists rushing to work were treated to the sight of us jumping up and down in the rain, waving banners bearing the slogans ‘Closed for a Total Re-think’; ‘Social Change, Not Climate Change’; and ‘International Day of Action Against Climate Change and the G8.’

We handed out leaflets to drivers and pedestrians, explaining that the blockade was part of a series of events taking place around the world to highlight the role played by the leaders of the high-emitting G8 nations in causing climate change, and to show up this week’s so-called ‘climate deal’ for the sham that it is.

One of the banner wavers was heard to shout: ‘We will not stand by and watch the planet burn as the G8 leaders and their corporate bedfellows trivialise the greatest threat facing humanity with a blind faith in techno-fixes and market mechanisms such as fraudulent carbon offset schemes. If we are going to truly solve this problem, we need a rapid transformation to a low-energy society – starting with the dismantling of the oil industry.’

We chose the less well-known Jet as our target to show that there is no such thing as a good oil company. Jet is owned by ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil refiner in the world, and the first Western oil company to enter Iraq after the start of the war. Jet and ConocoPhillips have so far escaped the criticism that has been justifiably heaped upon industry giants like Shell and BP, but they are no different. ConocoPhillips, like all oil companies, destroys ecosystems and communities around the world, and is profiteering from oil wars and climate chaos.

The response from drivers and passers-by was predictably mixed, and although the early arrival of the police forced us to change our plans slightly, the action still served its purpose: to highlight the inability of G8 leaders to truly tackle climate change, and to take action in solidarity with those disrupting the summit in Germany and those already suffering from the effects of climate change around the world.