These pre-emptive arrests are a worrying legacy of the previous government’s crusade to restrict peaceful protest.
A climate camp protest against the Drax power station in North Yorkshire, UK, planned for last weekend was cancelled at the last minute after 27 activists were arrested and equipment including tents, cooking equipment, toilets and track for wheelchairs were seized.
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Reclaim the Power, which was organising the event, has accused the police forces engaged of spent millions in public money preventing a peaceful camp against the country's largest carbon emitter at time when they could have focused resources on preventing violent fascist attacks.
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A statement issued by Reclaim the Power, which was organising the camp, said: “Drax is absolutely desperate to stop us drawing attention to the fact the UK's largest single source of carbon emissions is taking £1.7 million a day in publicly funded subsidies and just announced a £300 million windfall for shareholders.
READ: THE LATEST DRAX REPORT FROM EMBER.
Draconian
“It is utterly ridiculous that multiple police forces have wasted so much resource on this massive operation to stop an entirely peaceful protest, when they could have focused on preventing the violence fascist attacks happening nationwide.
“The police claim they are ‘not against protest but against crime’, but their actions show otherwise. In Yorkshire police prioritised locating and arresting people suspected of organising peaceful protest with tents, toilets and track for wheelchairs over locating and arresting people who are actually organising far right riots with bricks, knives and other weapons.”
Areeba Hamid, the co-executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: “These pre-emptive arrests are a worrying legacy of the previous government’s crusade to restrict peaceful protest. Their only crime was to plan a peaceful protest camp against one of the UK’s worst polluters.
"The protesters were not throwing bricks or in possession of offensive weapons. The inspiring public response we’ve seen to racist rioting in the last few days is a powerful reminder of the vital role peaceful protest plays in our society."
She added: "We must not give in to political attempts to demonise protestors, refugees and minority groups. We have the opportunity for a clean break and for this new government to change direction by rolling back some of the draconian laws and making space for all voices to be heard without a brick being thrown.”
Costly
Reclaim the Power is a UK based direct action network fighting for environmental, social and economic justice. It aims to build a broad based movement, working in solidarity with frontline communities to effectively confront environmentally destructive industries and the social and economic forces driving climate change.
Drax power station, located near Selby in North Yorkshire, is the world’s biggest woody biomass power station and the UK’s single largest carbon emitter. Drax sources from around the world, primarily the US, Canada, and the Baltic States. Drax’s wood pellet production sites, predominantly located in environmental justice communities, emit large amounts of pollutants, such as PM10, PM2.5 and VOCs which are linked to respiratory and pulmonary health impacts.
Woody biomass is counted as carbon neutral by the UK Government, despite the fact burning wood can create more emissions than burning coal. This allows Drax to receive renewable energy subsidies (CfDs and ROCs). Drax has also added £7 billion to energy bills to fund biomass generation since 2012.
Ember, a climate think tank, reports that Drax released 11.5m tonnes of carbon dioxide last year alone, nearly three percent of the total carbon emissions for the country. The plant released four times as much of the greenhouse gas as the country's only remaining coal fuelled plant, at Ratcliffe-on-Soar in Nottinghamshire.
Frankie Mayo, an analyst at Ember, said: “Burning wood pellets can be as bad for the environment as coal: supporting biomass with subsidies is a costly mistake.”
This Author
Brendan Montague is editor of The Ecologist.
