Five protestors have been found guilty for protesting against the African Energies Summit held at The May Fair - a luxury Mayfair hotel - in May 2022.

We were all found guilty of 'criminal damage' for our use of easily removable, water soluble molasses on marble floors, outdoor walls and cloth. The irony could hardly be stronger given the fossil fuel industry, it is calculated, owes $209 bn annually for its role in the climate crisis. (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/19/fossil-fuel-firms-owe-climate-reparations-of-209bn-a-year-says-study)

The Africa Energies Summit brings together the Oil and Gas industry (Shell, Total, Exxon, Chevron, ReconAfrica, Perenco etc) and their facilitators in the engineering industy (Schlumberger/SLB and friends) with African governments to do NEW DEALS in Africa.

New Deals? Seriously?! Is that what we need at this moment in history?

Recordings we played in The May Fair hotel gave testimony to devastation through pollution of land, air and water, displacement and human rights abuses as well as the staggering injustice of the impact of climate change itself on every aspect of wellbeing and livelihood throughout Africa already.

It is an exclusive conference and civil society voices are not represented at all. This is why we needed to protest loudly and clearly.

Our demands were simple: Justice for Africa and an end to the oil colonialism going on behind closed doors in the conference.

Africa has contributed just 2-4% to global emissions to date, while almost half the continent still cannot access electricity. Yet the impacts of climate change throughout the continent are already brutal.

What happens at the Africa Energies Summit is that unregulated oil companies sign exploitative new oil deals with debt-burdened African nations which need to cope with not only the pollution of oil exploration in their country, but the global effects of oil exploration – the drought, floods, food insecurity, displacement and conflict. It is not, in fact, a 'summit' – it is a crime scene, and the protestors are not the criminals.

All money raised will go towards paying the legal fees & fines from this case. Anything left over will be donated to the XR Legal Fund to help other rebels who have stepped up and taken action.