Washington Post
- Rachel Pannett
Hannah Doole and fellow climate protester disrupt coal export operations at
the Port of Newcastle in Australia by abseiling off machinery on Nov. 17. (Blockade Australia 1min 15sec)
Two young women scaled a huge coal handling machine shortly before dawn
on Wednesday, disrupting operations at the world’s largest coal port for
several hours to protest what they say is Australia’s lack of action on
climate change.
“My name is Hannah, and I am here abseiled off the world’s largest
coal port,” 21-year-old Hannah Doole declared on a live-streamed
video as she hovered high over massive piles of coal bound for
export. “I’m here with my friend Zianna, and we’re stopping this
coal terminal from loading all coal into ships and stopping all coal
trains.”
Since officials met in Glasgow, Scotland, earlier this month to plot
the planet’s
path away from fossil fuels, Australia, the world’s
second-biggest coal exporter, has showed little sign of changing course. Prime Minister Scott
Morrison
on Monday said the coal industry will be operating in the country for “decades to
come.”
When he agreed last month to go carbon-neutral by 2050, the man who
once
brought a lump of coal into Parliament
promised that his plan — which was short on details and long on
speculative technology — would not crimp coal exports nor cost
miners their jobs.
In the face of that apparent lack of urgency from government,
protesters are increasingly taking matters into their own hands. A
string of protests has disrupted the Port of Newcastle and
surrounding railroads in the past two weeks, prompting police to
establish a strike force to crack down on the high-profile stunts.
The protesters, from an activist group called
Blockade Australia, plan to converge on Sydney, the commercial capital, in June next
year, bringing the city to a halt.
“This is us responding to the climate crisis. This is humans trying
to survive,” Doole said on Wednesday. “We are trying to induce the
social tipping points, which will give us a chance at another
generation,” she remarked on camera, pausing to laugh ironically,
before adding: “What a wild thing to want.”
Blockade Australia activist Hannah explained why she halted the
export of coal by climbing on top of machinery at the Port of
Newcastle on Nov. 17.
(Julie Yoon/The Washington Post 59sec)
Despite the progress made at the COP26 climate summit, optimism
about the agreement hangs on whether countries will actually deliver
on the promises made in Glasgow. Coal production in China, the
world’s largest consumer of coal,
has surged to the highest levels in years
as the country addresses power outages.
Matt Kean, the environment minister for New South Wales state, speaking
on Sydney radio 2GB on Wednesday, said police need to “throw the book”
at anti-coal activists, describing their dramatic stunts as “completely
out of line.”
On Monday, another protester locked herself to a railway line leading to
the port, preventing coal cars from entering. On Tuesday, two activists
strapped themselves to another piece of coal-loading machinery. They
hung in the air for several hours before being arrested.
Interfering with a railway or locomotive with the intention of causing a
derailment can result in prison sentences up to 14 years,
police said, while other possible charges carry jail terms of up to 25 years. A
local police minister described the protests as “nothing short of
economic vandalism.” (A spokeswoman for the Port of Newcastle said other
operations at the port were continuing, beyond the rail lines and
coal-loading facilities.)
Doole and Zianna Faud, 28, were arrested and taken to a local police
station about 9 a.m. local time. The live-streamed video showed
authorities approaching on a metal gangway above the protesters, who
were suspended on ropes below, with a police officer appearing to read
them their rights.
According to a spokeswoman for the activist group, Faud appeared before
Newcastle magistrates court on Wednesday, where she faced charges of
hindering the working of mining equipment, which carries a maximum
sentence of seven years imprisonment, and entering enclosed lands. She
pleaded guilty and was given community service and a roughly $1,090
fine, and ordered not to associate with her co-accused, Doole, for two
years.
Doole and three other activists were refused bail and will be seen by
the court tomorrow.
“We are running rings around the police and the push back shows that
direct action is effective,” Faud said in a statement following her
release.
In the video, Doole said she considered the dangers before the protest —
imagining herself running across piles of coal with police helicopters
in pursuit. Then, she thought back to the time, a couple of summers ago,
when thousands of Australians fled from their homes as wildfires raged
and skies turned blood red. She and her family hunkered down in their
property as towns around them burned.
“Getting chased by a police helicopter, that’s not fun. … But you know
what scares me more?” she said. “I just think back to that New Year’s
Eve, when I thought I was going to die in a fire, caused by climate
change. And that’s the barest glimpse of what’s going to happen.”
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