Yesterday's prestigious Planet Under Pressure 2012 conference in the International Conference Centre (ICC) at the ExCeL Centre, London was interrupted by two London Rising Tide protesters.

During a panel discussion entitled “The planet in 2050”, at the exact moment that Shell's senior energy advisor Martin Haigh was about to speak the two protesters walked calmly across the stage, banner in hand, and were greeted with a loud, spontaneous round of applause from hundreds of people in the audience. As the protesters left the auditorium they were rewarded with hand shakes, thumbs up and another round of applause. Haigh was flustered and responded with words along the lines of “No-one will want to listen to me after that!”

London Rising Tide are asking why Shell were ever allowed to take part in this conference in the first place, given their record of environmental and human rights atrocities in Nigeria, Ireland, and Canada to name but a few places, and their investments in carbon-intensive fossil fuels such as oil from tar sands and shale gas, while abandoning funding for renewable energies.

The action got a lot of support on Twitter:

 https://twitter.com/#!/OrganicInfinity/status/184308641137041410
 https://twitter.com/#!/ResearchEurope/status/184232560602267649
 https://twitter.com/#!/AndyMorse/status/184232610237648898
 https://twitter.com/#!/TheRoadTo/status/184233068549259265
 https://twitter.com/#!/SimonLLewis/status/184233073259450368
 https://twitter.com/#!/PeterPannier/status/184238015571431425
 https://twitter.com/#!/chiversdanny/status/184242136982622208
 https://twitter.com/#!/ruthdavis27/status/184244851615870977
 https://twitter.com/kaisakosonen/statuses/184262211693322240
 https://twitter.com/ClimateRush/status/184237300870430720
 https://twitter.com/#!/350_Espanol/status/184272812062674944

And even a post from blogger sat firmly on the fence:

 http://scidevnet.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/a-protest-against-shell/

More information:

Rising Tide:  http://risingtide.org.uk/
Shell To Sea:  http://shelltosea.com/