Even a transatlantic flight to the United Kingdom wasn't enough on Wednesday for Canadian Prime Minster Justin Trudeau to dodge the mounting opposition to the Trans Mountain pipeline in his home country.
Dozens of climate activists with Greenpeace staged a protest in the morning outside the Canadian High Commission in London, where they erected a fake, 30-meter (98-foot) pipeline emblazoned with the label "Crudeau Oil." The activists also unfurled banners from the building that read "Crudeau Oil HQ."
Climate change knows no borders. If tar sands pipelines are built in Canada, they would use over 15% of the world’s entire carbon budget. That’s why we’re outside #Canada House in London to tell @CanadianPM @JustinTrudeau to clean up his act!
— Greenpeace UK (@GreenpeaceUK) April 18, 2018
Canadian PM @JustinTrudeau stopping by to check out his embassy's new oil pipeline... pic.twitter.com/XyshBJjp2G
— Greenpeace UK (@GreenpeaceUK) April 18, 2018
...we wanted him to feel at home pic.twitter.com/cclV2AB0SD
— Greenpeace UK (@GreenpeaceUK) April 18, 2018
That awkward moment when you're trying to chill with the world leaders and your evil oil-pipeline-building alter-ego shows up.@JustinTrudeau pic.twitter.com/tNTh3OGXRf
— Greenpeace UK (@GreenpeaceUK) April 18, 2018
Then you come round the corner to find someone's built an *actual pipeline* round your embassy https://t.co/YNePAUqksc
— Greenpeace UK (@GreenpeaceUK) April 18, 2018
Trudeau is in London on Wednesday for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. The campaigners say that while Trudeau may be using his European trip to tout his country's "ambitions for fighting climate change," his continued insistence that the pipeline "will be built" proves that his supposed support for the climate rings hollow.
Walking out of Canada House, Trudeau gave the group a thumbs up and said, "It's a pleasure to see you." One of the protesters said, "Climate leaders don't build pipelines, Mr Trudeau."
Referring to Kinder Morgan's pipeline, Greenpeace UK oil campaigner Sara Ayech said, "Trudeua's government is planning a huge oil pipeline across Indigenous lands to take the highly polluting tar sands to global markets."
"Tar sands are the dirtiest fossil fuel on the planet, far more polluting than coal," she added. "Building this pipeline would make Trudeau's claimed climate leadership a laughing stock."
She went on to accuse the prime minister of "risking the health of Canada's rivers and coast, the water supply, and livelihoods of many indigenous people, and undermining the credibility of the Paris climate agreement, all to keep some struggling oil companies in profit."
First Nations communities, the province of British Columbia and its cities of Vancouver, Burnaby, and Victoria, as well as mulitple other B.C. municipalities, are all opposed to the pipeline. The U.S. state of Washington is also against the project.
