Greenpeace stages ‘performance art’ protest at oil giant’s HQ

Activists from Greenpeace UK have staged an elaborate performance art protest at Shell’s London HQ to highlight the oil and gas industry’s role in climate change.

A team of 77 activists were involved in setting up the art installation titled ‘Breaking Point: Untold Stories of Climate Loss and Damage’.  

The performance culminated with the smashing of most of the installation’s 19 water-filled glass display cases.

Inside each case were belongings from Filipino communities whose homes have been devastated by “climate-charged typhoons”. 

The possessions included a sofa, a TV and a teddy bear. 

Broken glass from the cases was then swept into the Shell building’s doorways using traditional Filipino brooms.

The action also featured a soundtrack recorded in the Philippines of children laughing and Filipino people going about their daily lives.

Shining a spotlight

Maja Darlington, a Greenpeace UK climate campaigner, said the “protest art” was “shining a spotlight on Shell’s culpability”.

She added: “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.”

Darlington said that the UK government needs to intervene to halt the further exploration of gas and oil.

“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.”

Shell is currently going ahead with its new Jackdaw drilling platform in the North Sea, despite a recent ruling by a Scottish court that prohibits drilling.

The ruling overturned a 2022 decision by the previous government.

Shell will need to get fresh approval from Downing Street to extract from Jackdaw and its Rosebank oil and gas field, also in the North Sea.

Until this is given a ban on drilling remains in place.