Six Greenpeace climate change campaigners have been found “not guilty” as a jury legitimized their actions. The activists had been accused of causing £30,000 of criminal damage to the Kingsnorth coal-fired power station when, late last year, they scaled the 630ft chimney and painted ‘Gordon’ (planned to be ‘Gordon Bin it’) on the side.
Their defence, the first of its kind, was that they had a “lawful excuse”. They were preventing even larger property damage from the climate change impacts of the power plant¹s emissions, they argued. The activists admit to trying to shut down the power station by occupying and painting the smokestack. However, they argued that they were legally justified as many places around the world are in immediate need of protection, due to the effects of carbon dioxide emission. For example, areas such as the Arctic Sheet and parts of Greenland (as well as certain areas here in the UK) are all at risk from rising sea levels.
The Kingsnorth power station emits the same CO2 levels as the world’s top 30 least polluting countries combined. James Hasen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, who spoke for the defence, highlighted this by stating that the 20,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted daily by Kingsnorth could be responsible for the extinction of 400 species.
In these unprecedented circumstances the court has recognised that burning coal, still a significant energy source in Britain, is damaging to the environment and to property. Having used this argument as their defence, the campaigners have successfully defended their case.
The question which now presents itself is what legal precedent this court ruling will create for future action. Will other protestors now claim legal (as well as moral) authority to physically shut down energy companies under the same “lawful excuse” argument? And, given this outcome, will energy companies move to reassess the levels of risk which are associated with their current operating models?
In fact, a new court case against Greenpeace is already taking place. Sucor filed a lawsuit after one of the NGO’s activists went onto the company’s Aurora North oil sand site. How the verdict of the first case is interpreted as a precedent for this, and other, cases may lay the foundation for a new breed of public action in the name of climate change mitigation.