Embassy Action Against Icelandic Dam
london-features | 08.12.2004 16:27 | Ecology | London
On Friday 26 of November, a dozen people visited the Icelandic embassy in Knightsbridge, London, to disrupt its operation and express opposition to the Karahnjukar Hydropower Project in Iceland's Eastern Highlands. This scheme is the largest dam project in Iceland. It will be located near Vatnajoekull, Europe's largest glacier, and will dam and divert several glacial rivers. If constructed, it will consist of nine dams, three reservoirs, seven channels and 16 tunnels.
Four activists got into the building, while others hung a banner and leafleted passers by. All the activists who entered the embassy where finally ejected and arrested along with another activist who locked on to the doors [Report].
Karahnjukar Hydropower Project
The system of nine dams is being built solely to supply electricity for an aluminium smelter planned by US company Alcoa. The scheme was originally blocked by an environmental impact assessment due to: "substantial, irreversable negative environmental impact" but this was personally overturned by Iceland's Environment Minister.
Alcoa is closing two aluminium smelters in the US and relocating to Iceland, where electricity is cheap. Ironically it is Iceland's previously good CO2 emissions record that makes it such an attrative location for polluting industries, eager to fill Iceland's carbon quota agreed under the Kyoto Protocol.
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