Protesters sent a scorching message to forest-razer Drax

A climate crisis protester was found guilty of obstructing a railway line that carries trees to Drax’s climate-wrecking biomass power station – for less than a minute. If that seems an excessive weaponisation of the law against people standing up for the planet, it only gets worse in the wider context. This is because, the very next day, Drax was posting another year of whopping mega-profits.

So what do you do in the face of the complicit state and criminal justice system serving the interests of forest-razing Drax? Well, protesters from campaign group Axe Drax had one idea – and it involved FIRE.

Drax: the verdict is in, but not for the mega-polluter

Climate mega-polluter Drax has had a good week. However, it has meant bad news all round for people and the planet.

First, on Wednesday 26 February, a jury guided by a corporate servile judge handed climate protester and retired GP Diana Warner a guilty verdict. It was over an action in December 2021. Warner obstructed a railway line that carries trees destined to be burned by Drax’s Selby power plant in Yorkshire.

As the biggest burner of woody biomass worldwide, its the UK’s single largest carbon polluter, and then some. In 2023 for instance, the planet-wrecking wood pellet plant pumped out 11.5m tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. It meant that Drax’s Selby power station put out the equivalent of nearly 3% of the UK’s territorial emissions.

At Leeds Crown Court, Judge Kearl instructed the 12-person jury to ignore their consciences in the case. Notably, the judge told the jury that:

You have all taken an oath or affirmation to try this case on the evidence not your conscience

He directed them to try Warner solely on the basis of whether she a) trespassed on Network Rail’s land, and b) caused an obstruction. Despite this, the jury still raised the concern over conscience, before ultimately finding Warner guilty.

The jury queried Judge Kearl over their moral concerns, raising the question:

As a matter of conscience we are finding it difficult to come to a verdict. What should we do?

Of course, it isn’t the first case where a judge has tried to silence the jury’s right to acquit defendants. Notorious judges Christopher Hehir and Silas Reid – who have repeatedly handed out guilty verdicts to protesters – have been a leading example of judge hostility to juries ruling with their consciences.

Warner will now face sentencing on 25 March.

In a statement, Warner said that:

I believe that the jury showed they understood and agreed with me, through the question they asked and through their body language. I believe that they understood that I took the action to make the point that the government must review its position on Drax. The government must work towards getting the UK’s flexible energy in ways that are really sustainable.

Burning our future with its blistering profits

Following Warner’s guilty verdict, on the 27 February, Drax posted its full year results. Across its 2024 operations, the greenwashing giant raked in £1.06bn in profits.

Its gargantuan payouts also come the same month the Labour Party government has granted Drax £2bn in taxpayer subsidies. On Monday 10 February, the government extended this sum propping up the destructive industry from 2027 to 2031.

Moreover, despite these marking its highest ever earnings in more than three decades of its operations, it announced it would slash investment in plans to reduce its emissions. Specifically, as the Guardian reported, after stonking profits AND more government subsidies, it threatened to ditch carbon capture and storage (CCS) plans unless the government could guarantee its returns on this.

Obviously, the Canary has highlighted how CCS is a false climate solution and con anyway.  But the point it underscored is that even with its highest ever profits, Drax is rowing back on the minimal efforts to ‘green’ its mega-polluting business. Go figure. Needless to say, it was an opportunistic smokescreen all along.

However, climate campaigners from Axe Drax were undeterred by the latest court ruling against their fellow activist.

Protesters from the anti-biomass energy group pitched up outside Drax’s major wood pellet burning power plant in Yorkshire.

And the gaslighting ‘green’ energy giant got burned:

In front of its infamous site, protesters set alight a banner effigy to “our future” and “our money” that Drax was busy burning away in a background:

All the while, pollution belched out from the smokestacks at Drax:

The not remotely ‘renewable‘ energy giant has wrecked numerous old-growth forests and plundering nature reserves for its pellets.

Moreover, as the Canary reported only this week, Drax pellet mills in the US are having devastating impacts on nearby communities’ health.

Who’s the criminal again?

Maybe, just maybe, it’s climate criminal Drax that should really be in the dock again? As Warner mused in her statement, her trial:

is important because it clearly shows that the courts are protecting wealthy people and corporations.

Naturally, she’s right on the money – because Drax are clearly rolling in it with the full support of both the UK government, and the courts. Evidently, it’s clearly coming at an unconscionable expense for communities and biodiversity.

Rosie from Axe Drax said:

It is perverse hypocrisy that the same private company can have billions in subsidies from our bills pledged in the same month they announce over a billion in earnings, all while our genuine public services continue to crumble. We should not be lining the pockets for Drax’s shareholders while seeing cruel cuts to winter fuel payment and disability benefits.”

Helen Hart from Extinction Rebellion Leeds added that:

Burning trees in power stations for six more years is not a climate solution. It’s a climate crime that’s taking a torch to our future. If that wasn’t bad enough, this madness is being underwritten by billions of pounds that is being added to our energy bills, which is ending up in the pockets of mega-rich shareholders when it is badly needed to fix our broken public services.

Time and again we are seeing this government failing to stand up to powerful interests and do the right thing. That’s why we need a citizens’ assembly that is independent and made up of a cross-section of ordinary people.

Featured image and additional images supplied