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‘Climate justice is stories’
Caroline Mair-Toby, lawyer and chief empowerment officer at SHE Changes Climate, on why sharing stories is a crucial element of climate justice.
8 March 2023
Main image: The exhibition ‘Breaking Point: Untold Stories of Climate Loss and Damage’, around Shell’s London headquarters, displays the once-cherished belongings of Filipino communities that were wrecked by climate-charged typhoons. © Chris J Ratcliffe / Greenpeace
Activists from Greenpeace UK have taken hammers to an ‘exhibition’ surrounding Shell’s London headquarters, displaying the once-cherished belongings of Filipino communities that were wrecked by climate-charged typhoons that have struck the Philippines.
The protest art installation, titled Breaking Point: Untold Stories of Climate Loss and Damage, was set up by a team of 77 activists early yesterday (12 Feb) morning.
The goal is to highlight how the oil and gas industry is fuelling the climate crisis and intensifying extreme weather events that are destroying lives and livelihoods of ordinary people around the world.
The climate-wrecked possessions – including a sofa, television, shoes and a teddy bear – were exhibited in 19 display cases encircling the Shell Centre, including in front of all three of the building’s main entrances. Most display cases were flooded with water, leaving the items partially submerged.
Soundscapes of children laughing and people cooking or watching TV, recorded in the Philippines and played through speakers within the installations, created a haunting atmosphere.
These murmurs of everyday life were eventually replaced with sirens reminiscent of those used in the Philippines to warn people of impending floods, heightening tensions at the exhibition.
The performance art protest culminated with most of the glass display cases being smashed by activists, allowing the ‘flood’ waters submerging the typhoon-wrecked belongings to spill out in front of the entrances to Shell’s office building.
The activists then swept the broken glass into the doorways of the Shell Centre, using traditional Filipino brooms called ‘tambo’, before walking away and leaving all the belongings with Shell.
‘The world is near breaking point and it is oil and gas giants like Shell, who pocket tens of billions every year from burning fossil fuels that drive this climate chaos, that are to blame. It’s time they coughed up and paid their climate debts.
‘As well as shining a spotlight on Shell’s culpability, this haunting piece of protest art – and the once-cherished dolls, shoes, sofa and rice cookers being displayed – highlights the very real devastation experienced by communities in the Philippines, one of the most climate-impacted countries on Earth.
‘Instead of allowing new planet-heating oil and gas fields with disregard for the devastation they are causing, the government should make fossil fuel companies, like Shell, stop drilling and start paying for the typhoons, floods, fires and droughts that they are fuelling around the world.’MAJA DARLINGTON
Greenpeace UK’s climate campaigner
The Philippines experienced a record-breaking typhoon season last year, with six consecutive storm systems battering the country in less than a month.
The storms brought wind speeds of over 50 metres per second and intense rainfall, causing floods to sweep through the country.
The unprecedented number of typhoons, which were ‘supercharged’ by climate change according to experts, affected more than 13 million people, destroyed lives and livelihoods and were estimated to have cost nearly $500m in economic damages.
Despite these increasing climate impacts, Shell continues to drill for new oil and gas and is fighting for a major new gas field, Jackdaw, in the North Sea, despite the development being ruled illegal by the courts.
‘For far too long communities like mine have weathered climate impact after climate impact, while companies like Shell continue to profit from fuelling the climate crisis. By delivering these precious possessions, damaged and destroyed by typhoons supercharged by the climate crisis, from the Philippines directly by the doors of Shell, we demand accountability from major polluters and justice for all the loss and damage they have caused.’
BON GIBALAY
A youth leader from Bohol, Philippines
Campaigners from Greenpeace Philippines joined community members from Batasan Island in the Philippines last week, in a local protest against big oil and gas companies, such as Shell.
Batasan Island, often dubbed a ‘sinking island’ due to rising sea levels and worsening climate change, was badly hit by Super Typhoon Odette in 2021. It destroyed many homes, lives and livelihoods.
‘Today, Filipino communities have brought their demands straight to Shell’s headquarters, calling on the oil giant to stop expansion and profiteering, and pay up for escalating loss and damage.
‘The impacts of climate change – fuelled by the greed of fossil fuel companies – are bringing communities around the world to a breaking point as people face ever-increasing intensity and frequency of extreme weather and rising sea levels.
‘We are calling on the Philippine government to support these communities and lead the call for climate justice: demand an end to oil and gas expansion and make companies like Shell pay their share of the costs of destruction caused by climate impacts.’
JEFFERSON CHUA
Greenpeace Philippines Campaigner
Shell, who posted annual profits of $23.7 billion just two weeks ago, has produced 10 times more carbon pollution than the whole of the Philippines over the past 50 years.
There is also major public support for fossil fuel companies paying for climate impacts, with almost two-thirds (63%) of voters backing a tax on oil companies to pay for loss and damage caused by climate change.
Greenpeace is calling on the UK government to implement bold new polluter taxes on oil and gas companies – such as a tax on fossil fuel extraction, taxes on fossil fuel trading or higher taxes on fossil fuel dividends and share buybacks – to raise urgently needed funds for climate-impacted communities at home and abroad and ensure big polluters like Shell are made to pay for the climate damages they are causing.
Caroline Mair-Toby, lawyer and chief empowerment officer at SHE Changes Climate, on why sharing stories is a crucial element of climate justice.
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