CODEPINK LA Joined Coalition in Disrupting Fossil Fuels for Gaza

Coalition presented demands at the Chevron refinery in El Segundo on Sunday

Yesterday, CODEPINK's Los Angeles chapter joined a coalition of organizations dedicated to Palestinian human rights and climate justice outside Chevron Refinery in Segundo to demand an end to energy apartheid. 

Chevron is responsible for one of the highest total carbon emissions of any private company on the planet and for multiple climate disasters worldwide. The company is complicit in violent actions against indigenous communities around the world. It faces 13 credible accusations of genocide and 17 of torture. 

Chevron supplies Israel with billions in revenue, thereby contributing to apartheid, occupation, and genocide in Palestine. As a result, the international BDS movement has issued a call to boycott Chevron and for "supporters of Palestinian rights worldwide to join climate justice movements in holding Chevron... accountable for helping to fuel environmental destruction and Israeli apartheid."

Chevron operates the largest Israeli natural gas fields, Tamar and Leviathan, enabling electrical power to all branches of the Israeli government and its military and providing Israel hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues. Energy from these gas fields powers the Israeli Electric Company (IEC), which controls power to Palestinians. Some Palestinian communities inside Israel and across occupied Palestinian Territories are banned from connection to the grid, some are provided subpar services, some are charged differently than Jewish Israelis, and many suffer punitive power cuts as a form of collective punishment. This is commonly known as energy apartheid.

The coalition's demands are as follows:

• Discontinue all financial contracts and relations with the state of Israel.

• Compensate Palestinians for any losses resulting from the extraction of gas reserves off the Gaza Strip.

• Develop and implement a plan to convert all Chevron operations to producing renewable energy, compensate all past victims of climate disasters, and end all fossil fuel operations worldwide.

• Provide total funding for a just transition of Chevron's labor force into well-paid, unionized jobs in renewable energy and/or jobs with sustainable outcomes.

Palestinian organizer Maya Hilmi stated, "This is not just about fossil fuels; this is about humanity, justice, and the fate of our planet. Chevron is complicit in perpetuating energy apartheid upon Palestinian communities, where electricity is wielded as a tool of control and punishment. Chevron also extracts billions in revenue from the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields in Palestine. These gas lines serve as lifelines for the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Therefore, it is our duty as world citizens interconnected in the struggle to protest Chevron's destructive practices right here in Los Angeles."

Another organizer, Lyndsey Nolan, said, "The genocide in Gaza must end, and Chevron's role in it must be exposed to the public. We join the international call from the BDS [Boycott, Sanction, Divest] movement to boycott Chevron until they cut ties with ecocide and genocide." Dr. David Klein, former director of the Climate Science Program at California State University Northridge, emphasized, "the climate crisis is the greatest threat humanity has ever faced. All fossil fuel industries, including Chevron, must be repurposed to supply renewable forms of energy."

The coalition included Black Lives Matter LA, Code Pink LA, Extinction Rebellion LA, Veterans for Peace LA, WhitePeople4BlackLives, Queers4PalestineLA, Community Solidarity Projects, Youth Climate Strike LA, SJP Santa Monica, SJP Irvine Valley College, SoCal 350 Climate Action, Unmute Humanity, and ProPalestineLA.