Support Reclaim the Power’s Drax camp for Climate Justice
Please sign on as a representative of an organisation or as yourself.
Reclaim the Power is back with a protest camp for Climate Justice from the 8th to 13th August, in Yorkshire, UK. We’re a decade old direct action network that works in solidarity with front-line communities to make interventions for a fairer world. (We helped sort out Fracking and ran Europe's first climate & migrant justice camp).
The global climate camp movement began at Drax in 2006, when our demand to end coal powered stations was dismissed as impossible. As the last coal fired plant in the UK prepares to close this September we're back to finish our business.
We demand an end to bill payer subsidies to burning trees for energy, a worker led transition to a green economy and reparations for the communities harmed by Drax’s operations. Will you sign to support these aims?
Why target Drax?
Drax is a wood biomass power station located near Selby, in Yorkshire. It is a former coal-power station that converted to biomass, and now entirely burns wood biomass. Drax is the UKs single largest carbon emitter and world's biggest tree burner. Their actions have been repeatedly linked to fueling environmental racism and causing huge amounts of harm to communities, forests and biodiversity.
This is a very expensive project, and we are paying for it. Our bills subsidise Drax by nearly £2 million a day, while they made over £1 billion in profits in 2023. Drax admits they rely on subsidies to survive, and is currently trying to get them renewed, so this is a crucial time act.
Drax is neither sustainable or renewable. It burns more trees than any other power station in the world, and is the UK’s largest single source of carbon emissions. Drax and the government claim that these emissions ‘don’t count’ because the trees are grown in other countries, and because one day far in the future another tree will store that carbon. But it’s common sense that they do count, right here and right now - they are contributing to catastrophic climate breakdown today. We need a real plan for reducing emissions, not a fantasy based on false accounting.
On top of that, Drax is toxic and dangerous. Drax power station is one of the highest emitters of particulate pollution in Europe, which causes lung disease and other respiratory problems, and it has been accused of endangering the health of their workers. The production of wood pellets in North America creates dangerous dust and pollution, which is destroying the health of people in marginalised communities and is a devastating injustice.
Who are Reclaim the Power?
Reclaim the Power (or ‘RtP’) are a grassroots direct action network with an anti-capitalist and anti-colonial analysis. We work in solidarity with front-line communities to make strategic interventions in key industries and policies.
In the 11 years since Reclaim the Power started we have helped to:
- Controversialise Fracking, and make it economically and politically unviable
- Shut down open cast mining in South Wales
- Undermine the roll out of new Gas fired power stations
- Organise the UK’s first action camp focused on both Migrant Justice and Climate Justice
Basically, we take the fight to the doorsteps of corrupt institutions, and win. Now we are taking on Drax.
Will you sign here to show your support for the aims of the camp?