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Last July a thousand people in Finland
faced a hard decision as they prepared to
vote for the Finnish Climate Killer. All ten
candidates were horrible remnants from the
age of dirty fossil fuels - fighting all
attempts to push forward renewable energy and
to save the world from catastrophic climate
change.
Now the votes have been counted. With an
overwhelming 29.4 percent share of the votes,
Finnish Esso, the Finnish part of the world’s
largest oil company ExxonMobil, is the
winner. It received the Climate Killer Award
on Monday morning in an impressive
ceremony.
Esso failed to send a representative to the
event, but Friends of the Earth Finland
Chairperson Leo Stranius went ahead with the
presentation, handing the Award over to
activists dressed as the Esso tiger and a
masked version of Exxon Mobil's President Rex
W. Tillerson.
In their speech, they stressed that
ExxonMobil has time and again over the years
that it is committed to use any means to
speed up catastrophic climate change. Its
products and activities have contributed a
remarkable 5 percent towards human made
global warming and yet it shows no sign of
responsibility in its policies or
investment.
Friends of the Earth Finland's Climate
Campaign Coordinator Lauri Myllyvirta is
impressed by the corpoarte giant's
persistence. “Esso has worked tirelessly to
sabotage the Kyoto Protocol, spending dozens
of millions of dollars on anti-Kyoto
publicity campaigns. It has struggled hard
against renewable energy and emission
reductions. Now we feel this work has got the
kind of recognition it deserves.”
“We also want to congratulate the Finnish
Trade and Industry Ministry as Finland’s
worst genuinely domestic Climate Killer. It
has successfully undermined Finnish climate
and energy policy, effectively slowing down
the switch to renewable and energy efficient
technology in Finland,” Myllyvirta said. The
latest example is a tax reduction for peat -
a non-renewable fuel comparable to coal - put
forth by this Climate Killer Ministry.
“Without the Trade and Industry Ministry’s
dedicated efforts, Finland’s greenhouse gas
emissions would be lower and its energy
production far more responsible.”
Results:
Candidate/Share of votes
1. Esso: 29,4 %
2. Trade and Industry Ministry: 12,1 %
3. Kimi Raikkonen, F1 driver: 11,7 %
4. Industry and Employers, industry lobby:
10,6 %
5. Eija-Riitta Korhola, Finnish MEP: 8,2
%
6. Matti Viialainen, Trade union leader: 6,4
%
7. Car Union, A pro-cars, pro-highways NGO:
5,8 %
8. Power of Industry, Nuke and coal energy
company: 4,5 %
9. Finnair, Flight company: 1,8 %
10. Development Politics Department of
Foreign Affairs Ministry: 1,7 %
Others: 7,9 %
TOTAL: 1079 votes
Voters had an option to vote for anyone or
anything not included in the list. The most
popular suggestions included: ordinary
people’s attitudes and lifestyles; the United
States; large Finnish cities; many other
pro-fossil fuels politicians; and media that
pay too little attention to or try to
diminish the threat of climate change.
Both advocates and opponents of nuclear
power got some votes.
The Climate Killer Vote was part of
Carbon Dinosaur Tour in Finland
. The tour visited nine targets in six cities
with a huge, inflatable Carbon Dino, exposing
the opponents of sustainable energy future
and mitigation of catastrophic climate
change. The tour was a great success when it
comes to reaching people and the media.
www.foeeurope.org/dinosaur
for the carbon dino tour plan and picture
gallery
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