Extinction Rebellion disrupts DC Council vote on climate bills
June 28, 2022, Washington DC -- Extinction Rebellion disrupted another DC Council session today (Tuesday) as council members voted on two climate bills, escalating the climate movement’s campaign to get fossil fuels out of the city.
“The two bills passed today are not enough. They are half-measures that fail to reduce the district’s greenhouse gas emissions fast enough to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown,” said Reilly Polka, a spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion’s DC chapter (XRDC) as police forcefully removed the peaceful protestors. “They're trying to put out a house fire with a thimble of water.”
Bill 24-420 electrifies some new buildings in the district but leaves out single-family homes, duplexes, and row houses under four stories. It allows buildings to get electricity from biogas, a harmful pollutant that emits the same greenhouse gasses that cause climate change. Black residents will face disproportionate economic burdens, according to the council's own racial equity impact assessment of the bill. And it also fails to stop emissions from the district's remaining buildings, which are responsible for about 70% of the city’s carbon pollution.
Bill 24-267 codifies the city’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets. But these targets will be impossible to meet unless the council stops Washington Gas from spending $4.5 billion on new fossil fuel infrastructure that will lock in decades of planet-burning methane gas emissions. Even DC’s own Department of Energy & Environment is scathing about the company’s plans.
“The council cannot pretend to be serious about tackling the climate crisis while they let Washington Gas carry on with a death project that will pollute and destroy the lives and futures of the city’s residents,” said Polka. “To avoid climate hell and win a liveable future for the city’s residents, there can be no new fossil fuel infrastructure – starting now.”
Today’s disruption is part of XRDC’s escalating campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience to get fossil fuels out of DC. We have disrupted political forums and Council meetings. We have sent letters to the council and delivered them in person. The council has repeatedly ignored our demands.
Since the Council has taken no steps to halt Washington Gas’ $4.5 billion dollar death project, we are back to peacefully demand a fossil-free future for all of DC’s residents. We will continue to disrupt politics-as-usual to demand the Council prioritize the health and well-being of DC’s most marginalized people.
NOTE TO EDITORS:
For more information about XRDC's campaign and its demands visit https://www.xrdc.org/gas
Methane is the gas piped into your home to cook your food and heat your house. DC has some of the oldest underground methane gas pipes in the country, and these pipes are leaking large amounts of methane throughout the city. There are more than 6,000 leaks in the district — more than twice the average US city. Some of these leaks are so dangerous that they could explode at any moment, posing a severe and immediate threat to the city’s residents.
Methane gas kills. It severely harms the health of DC’s residents, especially the most vulnerable — children, the elderly, and people experiencing homelessness. When you light your stove, it sends nitrogen dioxide into your home. That can cause cardiovascular problems, respiratory disease, and premature death.
A lit gas stove also produces a poisonous cocktail of other chemicals and gasses like formaldehyde, carbon dioxide, particulate matter, and nitrogen dioxide. Children in homes with gas stoves are 42% more likely to have asthma than children whose families use electric stoves, a similar rate to children living with cigarette smokers. Stoves continue to leak methane into your home even when they’re turned off.
Washington Gas will tell you methane gas is “renewable,” “clean,” “natural,” “responsible,” and “green.” In fact, greenhouse gas emissions from the use of methane gas now exceed coal emissions in the United States — and methane heats the planet up to 80 times faster than carbon dioxide.
Methane concentrations in the atmosphere are so high that they’re now responsible for 30-50% of the global rise in temperatures. Leaking gas pipes, like those in DC, are a major source of US methane emissions. The amount of methane the fossil fuel industry releases is far worse than regulators think. And gas stoves in the United States release the same amount of greenhouse gas as 500,000 cars.
In December 2017, DC pledged to become carbon neutral by 2050. Washington Gas’ plans make this goal impossible to achieve.
About Extinction Rebellion
Time has almost entirely run out to address the climate & ecological crisis, including the sixth mass extinction, global pollution, and abrupt, runaway climate change. Societal collapse and mass death are seen as inevitable by scientists and other credible voices if rapid action is not taken.
Extinction Rebellion believes it is a citizen’s duty to rebel, using peaceful civil disobedience, when faced with criminal inactivity by their Government.
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