Climate justice campaigners have staged a musical and dance demonstration in Edinburgh as part of a UK-wide mobilisation against biomass energy company and big polluter Drax. They protested to coincide with Drax’s AGM, which the company is holding in London Thursday 1 May.
Drax AGM: protests across the country
Groups including Extinction Rebellion Edinburgh, Biofuelwatch, Fuel Poverty Action, Stop Burning Trees, Protest in Harmony, and Parents for Future Scotland led the creative protest in Princes Street Gardens:
Drax is the UK’s single largest carbon emitter and the world’s biggest tree burner.
The ‘Love Trees, Axe Drax’ protest featured speeches, dancing by the Scotland Tree Gees to ‘Staying Alive’ by the Bee Gees, as well as singing led by Protest in Harmony:
This included Drax-themed lyrics to ‘Hit the Road Drax’ and ‘Money Money Money’ by Abba:
The Edinburgh demonstration is part of a wider online and in-person mobilisation for Drax’s AGM. Campaigners are carrying out other protests in tandem in York, Liverpool, and outside the AGM in London. Together, they’re calling for an end to Drax’s gargantuan tree-burning subsidies.
Climate-wrecking Drax’s environmental racism
In 2024, Drax received £869 million in green subsidies from UK energy bills, whilst making nearly £1.1 billion in profit. On top of this, its CEO Will Gardiner paid himself a salary of nearly £3m.
In February this year, the government announced plans to use UK energy bills to extend Drax’s renewable subsidies until 2031. This ran contrary to the advice of the Climate Change Committee. The government has stipulated no obligation for the company to capture any of the carbon dioxide it emits.
Sally Clark from Biofuelwatch said:
There is nothing green or sustainable about Drax’s tree burning, climate-wrecking emissions and harm to communities and wildlife. The government needs to reconsider its catastrophic plans to grant huge new tree-burning subsidies for Drax. ‘If we are to keep global temperature rises below 1.5 degrees and ensure a liveable future for all, we need to protect and restore the world’s forests, not allow big polluters like Drax to log and burn them.
Cathy Allen from Extinction Rebellion Edinburgh said:
It is shocking that Drax is receiving billions in renewable subsidies from our energy bills to burn trees and pollute communities around the world. This is the opposite of green energy and the government’s plans to waste even more of our money on new subsidies for Drax will be a disaster for the planet if they go ahead. ‘If the Government is serious about climate leadership, it should invest in real solutions like warm homes and wind and solar power, not send our futures up in smoke with even more money for Drax’s climate-wrecking tree burning.
Communities in the Southern US living near Drax’s pellet mills have repeatedly accused Drax of ‘environmental racism’. There, its operations emit harmful pollutants linked to asthma, cancer, and pulmonary health issues.
In April, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality refused Drax’s permit application to expand air pollution at its wood pellet mill in Gloster, Mississippi due to public health concerns and following multiple fines for Drax over air pollution violations.
Rip off energy bills courtesy of big polluter Drax
Lead Campaigner for the Stop Burning Trees Coalition Merry Dickinson said:
Today, Drax is gathering with its shareholders to discuss the profits it’s made from ripping off bill payers, burning forests and polluting communities abroad. Drax’s profits are built off scamming bill payers, destroying vital forests and polluting Black and low income communities in the US.
It is a disgrace that the government has just granted Drax more of our money to continue polluting our planet. We will not stand by and allow Drax’s destruction to go unchecked. The future is in real green energy and green jobs, not Drax’s dirty tree burning and pollution.
Stuart Bretherton from Fuel Poverty Action added:
To stick further costs onto our energy bills, to continue subsidising record breaking profits from Drax’s destroying and burning of vital forests, is criminal.
It’s not hard to find the solutions that could reduce bills and boost energy security without betraying our climate targets and harming communities here and abroad.
This government should be looking at why the unit price of electricity is still tied to that of gas, forcing us to pay far more to heat our homes this way even though renewable electricity is much cheaper to produce.
And why are we paying out huge sums of public money for wind and solar farms to switch off during the highest periods of production, when this excess clean energy could power our homes for next to nothing, literally for free?
On 25 April, the Public Accounts Committee published a new report in which it lambasted wood-burning companies like Drax. Notably, this warned that these corporations are “marking their own homework” when it comes to meeting sustainability standards.
BBC Panorama investigations have found that Drax is continuing to log primary forests in British Columbia in Canada. The company has failed more than once to report that it is sourcing wood to burn from previously untouched forests in Canada.
Featured images via Biofuelwatch/Protest in Harmony/Sally Clark/Mike Spring
