GALP façade covered with posters “searching” for Portugal’s richest family, its main shareholders and “responsible for 1 in 5 deaths worldwide”.
This morning, on the day GALP released its profits for the last few months, several Climáximo supporters stuck posters on GALP’s façade reading “Wanted: the criminal Amorim family for the murder by extreme heat of 50,000 people in Europe this summer alone, and for displacing and condemning thousands of people to death”, “Portuguese government to the new Nuremberg tribunal for crimes against humanity”, and “They fill pockets, we are left with the wreckage”.
The Amorim family, the richest family in Portugal, owns a large share of GALP, with Paula Amorim as chair of the company’s board of directors. The Portuguese government is the second largest shareholder. Matilde, a master’s student and spokesperson for this protest, says that “the owners of all this fill their pockets with millions at the expense of our lives. They know they are leading us to social and climate collapse and they throw sand in our eyes while they build their bunkers. This is not normal. Paula Amorim is killing thousands of people. The government has blood on its hands. We, the ordinary people, have to stop this now!”
The fossil fuel business, carried out by companies such as GALP and endorsed by governments, is the main cause of the climate disasters – fires, floods, hurricanes, storms – that we have been witnessing and that have destroyed the lives of thousands of people. According to a 2021 Harvard University study, 1 in 5 deaths globally are caused by the burning of fossil fuels. Matilde adds that “GALP must be dismantled, and the money it has made from destruction – as well as that of its ultra-rich shareholders and the Amorim family – must be used to ensure a just energy transition”.
The Climáximo collective invites everyone – “workers, students, mothers, fathers, children, precarious workers, unemployed people, grandparents, grandchildren” — to participate in the mass civil resistance action “Stop While We Can” on November 23rd, when discussions at the United Nations Climate Conference (COP29) and the State Budget (OE) in Portugal will be closing. In the call to action, the collective states that “November 23rd cannot be a normal Saturday where we act as if everything is fine, when we are at risk of losing everything”.