By Angela Deegan, Extinction Rebellion

In May this year, a short article in the business pages of the Irish Independent caught my attention. The article titled “Clontarf Energy acquires 10pc stake in Western Australian gas prospect” dispassionately stated that the British-registered, Irish-based oil and gas explorer had “acquired 10pc of an offshore gas prospect in Western Australia for $4m (€3.8m)” and that drilling was expected to start drilling in June. Nothing exciting to see here. Just another company selling out our future for the chance at some big profits!

It struck me how this company was “hiding in plain sight” in a Dublin suburb while engaging in fossil fuel operations halfway across the world! I was outraged and motivated to take action with Extinction Rebellion (XR) - which we would do over the following months, with some surprises along the way.

The first step was sending a letter from XR to the company asking for a meeting to discuss the imperative of changing their business model away from fossil fuel investments. The letter elicited a quick, defensive response - but one that failed to respond in any way to the request for a meeting. So we formed a group within XR to brainstorm ideas. The group included people brand new to XR - Eoin Galavan, a psychologist living in Howth and Diarmaid Lawlor, a legal office assistant living in North County Dublin.

Clontarf Energy Plc (CE) headquarters are in an unassuming two-storey seafront building at 162 Clontarf Road, Clontarf, Dublin. It actually houses multiple companies, including those of the “162 Group” - with many of the same directors in common. The focus of the 162 Group is “high potential natural resource start-ups. The principal is to marry geological risk against political uncertainty.”

CE has investments in oil & gas exploration in Chad, Ghana and, most recently, off the coast of Western Australia. The company’s interim statement for the period ended June 2022 states “Shortages of piped gas and LNG feedstock have driven prices to record levels. There has rarely been a better time to hold prospective acreage.” It’s clear that this company can’t see past potential profits to the havoc and suffering that greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels are unleashing on our climate - just this year devastating droughts in China & Europe; wildfires in Spain, Portugal and France; flooding in Pakistan; drought leading to starvation in the Horn of Africa, etc.

On 28th July, holding a big red “Stop Fossil Fuels banner”, we marched along the seafront to 162 Clontarf Road, where XR rebel Jeffrey Sardina proceeded to the front door with our letter repeating our demand for a meeting. To our surprise, two of the three directors of the company - David Horgan, Chairman and Jim Finn - were there and invited us in. (It turns out they had been tipped off the previous day by the Press about our plans.)

They met with Jeffrey and me while the rest of the group protested outside. We told the Directors about the devastation that fossil fuels are causing and about the climate anxiety that we feel and that we regularly hear expressed by friends, acquaintances and members of the public. We told them they had to get out of fossil fuel exploration and asked them to do some soul-searching about the evil that is fossil fuel exploration in an age when we understand so well the destruction these fuels are causing. When we weren’t getting anywhere, we asked to bring a climate scientist with us for a follow-up meeting and they agreed to a 12th September meeting.

In doing outreach to the public at Vernon Ave, Clontarf after the meeting, we found most people had no idea that there was a fossil fuel company just up the road from them and were supportive and appreciative of what we were doing.

In the intervening weeks, we had new members join our XR group - including Tom Adams, a student counsellor at TUD, and Enda Kelly, a student living in Carlow. One of our group members alerted us that Horgan was a signatory to the ‘There is no Climate Emergency declaration’ on Clintel.org, a project by a lobby group funded by two Dutch millionaires. We also observed that Horgan was regularly being interviewed on several Irish radio stations - RTÉ, Newstalk, Radio Nova and Today FM. It’s outrageous that radio stations give this man a platform that lends him credibility while he draws from the climate denier playbook. So we started a petition on Uplift.ie, calling on these radio stations to stop giving airtime to climate deniers like Horgan and instead ramp up coverage of the climate crisis and climate solutions.

A week before the scheduled September 12th meeting, word came from Horgan that he wouldn’t be available for the meeting as he was travelling to Bolivia on business - despite the date for the meeting having been set to suit CE. He was obviously thumbing his nose at us. We went ahead with preparing for the meeting nonetheless, including public outreach in Clontarf and neighbouring Fairview in the week prior to it. On 12th September, we showed up at the appointed time. Climate Advisor and Sustainable Human Development Scientist and XR rebel, Naomi Sheehan, came with us. CE director Jim Finn came to the door, but he claimed that the meeting had been cancelled by Horgan. It was clear he didn’t want to meet with any of us. However, he finally agreed to meet with Naomi alone.

Naomi focused largely on the business, financial and humanitarian risks of the climate emergency. She emphasised to Mr Finn that our current fossil-fuel based course is leading us on a pathway to human extinction, with 39 countries worldwide on the brink of famine and hunger projected to increase 6-fold to 840 million people by 2030; that economically, the losses from climate change globally by 2050 would be equivalent to 3 or 4 back-to-back Covid size pandemics, torpedoing the global economy like no event ever before; that CE’s office and many thousands of homes could be under sea level within 20 years and that upset homeowners would be demanding compensation from those responsible for this catastrophe - such as fossil fuel executives and politicians. This seemed to register with Finn.

She reminded him that every fraction of a degree of warming counts, and that misinformation and climate denial were enabling the continuation of inaction. Finn seemed surprised to learn that his co-director Horgan was a signatory of the ‘There is No Climate Emergency’ declaration and said it would be ‘silly’ to deny climate change. Despite that, he still insisted that the company needed to continue their fossil fuel investments for about ten years - while they awaited their investments in lithium mining in Bolivia turning a profit! He also posed the “why us” question - i.e. why don’t you pick some of the bigger fossil fuel players? Of course, that’s what all fossil fuel companies want - to be left alone to make their profits, however devastating the costs to others.

While Naomi and Mr Finn talked, the rest of us rebels protested outside on both sides of Clontarf Road with banners with the slogans ‘Stop Fossil Fuels’ and ‘Burning us Alive’. One of our group - Seán Loughran from Balgriffin - had arrived early and written “Clontarf Energy Are Responsible For Rising Seas” in huge chalk lettering on the footpath outside the offices - before cycling off to work. Some members of the general public and a local Green Party councillor, Donna Cooney, stopped by to support the protest. The action made ‘Irish Times Photo of the Day’ with a little help from Councillor Cooney’s dog.

After the protest, XR protestor Suzanne Brewer, a teacher from Raheny, witnessed the chalk artwork being washed off the footpath by a contractor who had apparently just been waiting in the wings for us to leave. Presumably the truth in the chalk messages made CE uncomfortable.

After two meetings/protests with CE, we hope we have opened a chink in their armour. What we know for certain is we have raised awareness about the existence of this fossil fuel company among their Clontarf neighbours. This XR group’s focus now is on getting more signups to the petition asking Irish radio stations to stop giving a platform to climate deniers - like Horgan - who have a vested interest in the promotion of fossil fuels. When we have enough signatures, we will approach the radio stations with the petitions in hand to engage in discussion about the importance of giving climate science and policy experts airtime - not climate deniers with self-serving motives - and getting some real commitments from them on this front.

Please help us meet/exceed our goal of 1,000 signatures on the petition. Sign it, if you haven’t already done so - and if you have, think of at least two others you can ask! And get involved in climate action yourself - if not with XR, then with one of the many other excellent groups out there. Remember, the greatest threat in the overarching climate and biodiversity crises we’re in now is the belief that someone else will fix them!