Three climate activists are this morning due in Westminster Magistrate’s
Court charged with criminal damage against the Canadian High Commission in
London. On December 15th, while the International Climate Summit was
taking place in Copenhagen, the protesters scaled the entrance to the
Canadian High Commission in Grosvenor Square. They cut loose the Canadian
flag, before defacing it with crude oil while unfurling a banner reading
“Shut Down the Tar Sands”.

The action was a response to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s
obstruction of the summit in Copenhagen in order to protect Canada’s Tar
Sands Industry [1]. Tar Sands are the dirtiest fuel known to man, both in
terms of its impact on the climate and the devastation inflicted on the
local communities [2].

There is an enormous open cast mine in the Alberta Tar Sands region of
Canada, where an area the total size of England will be exploited. This is
the largest industrial development in the world and is devastating for the
indigenous communities that live there, not only destroying the land
itself but increasing levels of cancer, poisoning much of their
traditional food sources and leaving the water unsafe to drink [3]. This
violates the indigenous treaty rights legally bound to this region.

Jake Colman, 20, Bradley Day, 22, and Daniel Whitely, 19, are all
participants in the Camp for Climate Action [4], an action group that
occupied Trafalgar Square for the two-week duration of the Climate Summit.

Bradley Day, a waiter from Oxford, speaking after the action:

“This is just the beginning of a UK-based direct action campaign to stop
Canadian Tar Sands. These murderous ventures are being funded from within
the UK, with the Royal Bank of Scotland, now 84%-owned by the public
investing billions, and British Petroleum currently preparing to move in
to Tar Sands. [5] We won’t stand by and let these greed driven
corporations cause catastrophic environmental and human destruction.”

Clayton Thomas-Muller, an Indigenous activist with the Indigenous
Environmental Network (IEN), spoke during the Copenhagen summit:

“The Canadian government continues to ignore its own laws, which state
they must consult with Indigenous Peoples who have been trying to convey
concerns about Tar Sands development. Tar Sands are killing our
communities and trampling over our rights. Furthermore, the environmental
destruction wreaked by the Tar Sands is directly threatening thousands of
lives now and is driving our climate into chaos. The world has woken up to
the fact that Canada is now Public Climate Enemy Number One. It's time
Canada did its global duty and shut down the Tar Sands,”

NOTES TO EDITORS:

[1] At the failed Copenhagen Climate Summit, Canada proposed an inadequate
target for reducing greenhouse emissions by only 3% by 2020 ignoring world
scientists’ recommendations to commit to over 40% reductions below 1990
levels in order to avoid dangerous runaway climate change. Canada already
failed to meet its commitments to the Kyoto Treaty and refuses to sign the
UN’s Declaration of Rights for Indigenous Peoples whilst continuing
development of Tar Sands oil extraction.

[2] Tar Sands fuel is a way of extracting oil who’s energy intensive
process has not only completely destroyed areas of the Boreal forests the
size of England, burns enough natural gas to power 6 hundred thousand
homes a year, produces lakes of toxic waste 66km wide -which filters into
all local life and drinking water- but would itself be enough to push our
climate into chaos.

 http://tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com/about/

[3]  http://tarsandsinfocus.wordpress.com/about/

[4]  http://climatecamp.org.uk

[5] This is the start of a fast growing UK campaign against Tar Sands.
Although we do not receive oil directly from Canadian Tar Sands,
Corporations such as RBS which is now 84% owned by the British Tax Payer
invests billions and British Petroleum have plans to move in to the ‘Sun
Rise’ site in the coming months. Action on these issues and these
corporations are soon to become a focus of UK activism as we begin to
stand up to International injustices such as Tar Sands in Canada.