Greenpeace Australia Pacific activists have scaled and blocked a coal ship, bound for the Port of Newcastle today, during the Rising Tide People’s Blockade, deploying a banner with a message to the Australian government: “Phase Out Coal and Gas”.
According to the report at the Greenpeace portal, three activists are secured to the anchor chain and sides of the ship, stopping its operations, and have unfurled the five-metre-long banner in a peaceful protest demanding the Australian government set a timeline to phase out fossil fuels including exports, and stop approving new coal and gas projects.
Australian musicians Oli and Louis Leimbach from Lime Cordiale also joined the action from a support vessel, while Greenpeace activists painted a message to the Australian government on the ship’s side, using non-toxic soluble paint, reading: “TIMELINE NOW!”
It comes after Australia signed onto the significant Belém Declaration for the Transition Away From Fossil Fuels on the sidelines of COP30 in Brazil last week, but then doubled down on its support for coal and gas.
Dr. Elen O’Donnell, doctor and Greenpeace activist who boarded the vessel, said: “We are taking action today, alongside thousands of people who have joined Rising Tide’s blockade, to show Australia’s leaders that if the government won’t act, the people will. Australia is the world’s third-largest fossil fuel exporter, and its outsized role in the climate crisis calls for serious action. Every shipment of coal that leaves this port contributes to more devastating bushfires, floods and cyclones. As a doctor, I have seen first-hand the impacts of climate disasters on people in Australia and around the world — I’ve seen how our government’s obsession with fossil fuels is harming people and killing our planet.”
