Climate and Palestine protesters target BP ahead of annual general meeting

Around 40 activists rallied outside of British Petroleum’s (BP) headquarters in London on Wednesday evening to protest the company’s role in the climate crisis and complicity in Israel’s war on Gaza.

The protests came ahead of the company’s annual general meeting (AGM), which is expected to bring together executives and shareholders to assess BP’s 2024 performance, as well as set out its future goals. 

Organisers included Fossil Free London, Energy Embargo for Palestine, and the Free West Papua Campaign. 

Campaigners told Middle East Eye that they have been actively protesting BP since the start of the war on Gaza and that the Wednesday rally was specifically held on the eve of the company’s AGM, as it was “the most important event on their financial calendar”.

Leila, a spokesperson for Energy Embargo for Palestine, who did not want to give her surname, condemned the upcoming meeting as a celebration of “another year of profiteering from genocide and climate breakdown.” 

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Protesters brought attention to BP’s co-ownership of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, which supplies over 30 percent of Israel’s oil supply.

While the Turkish state announced a trade embargo against Israel in May 2024, satellite evidence from Energy Embargo for Palestine’s Stop Fuelling Genocide campaign revealed that the crude oil shipments have been ongoing. 

“That oil is then transported to Israel and then it's refined into military-grade jet fuel which is currently used to power the genocide in Gaza,” Leila told MEE. 

An 2024 analysis by Oil Change International revealed that companies such as BP, which have been providing fuel and oil to Israel throughout the war on Gaza, could risk legal complicity in the crimes of genocide and violations under international law.

Campaigners also condemned the Israeli government’s March decision to grant new licences to BP for offshore gas exploration, including off the coast of Gaza, as well as the massive expansion of BP’s natural gas plant in West Papua in November 2024. 

Koteka Wenda, a representative of the Free West Papua Campaign, a group which advocates for the West Papuan independence from Indonesia, described the region as a “hotbed for extractivist companies like BP to make millions off of the blood of indigenous people.”

Protesters at the demonstration also brought attention to a Wednesday report by the environmental and human rights NGO Global Witness.

That report said BP’s recent decision to terminate its 2023 interim target for reducing fossil fuel production could result in “72,000 additional heat deaths” by the end of the century. 

According to Net Zero Investor, BP’s agenda for the Thursday AGM did not include a discussion on climate strategy, despite calls by a number of concerned investors to have a shareholder vote on the company’s recent move to increase oil and gas production and scale down investments in renewable energy. 

“We don’t expect us standing outside of BP to actually end BP’s gas licences off the coast of Gaza,” Leila explained, adding: “We see these as different fronts to isolate BP.”

BP has not yet responded to a request for comment. 

middleeasteye.net