Major tar sands success!

Thank you for coming here to take action and tell Nick Clegg to keep tar sands out of Europe. The good news is, when the crucial vote took place back in February, the UK took notice of tens of thousands of people who put pressure on Nick Clegg and transport minister Norman Baker and abstained.

Just a couple of months ago, it was revealed that the UK – following intense lobbying by the oil industry and its Canadian government allies – was seeking to sabotage a European plan that would prevent oil derived from tar sands ending up in cars across our continent.

Together with our colleagues in Friends of the Earth, the Co-operative, People and Planet, 38 Degrees and Avaaz, we mobilised tens of thousands of us so together we could all pile pressure onto Nick Clegg and his Lib Dem transport minister Norman Baker ahead of today’s European vote.

Well, the UK got out of the way and abstained in the vote. Considering that, just weeks before, officials in the Department for Transport were aggressively lobbying against the plan, this is a considerable shift from the UK.

Now the European proposals will go before a new vote of ministers in June, so we’ll have to keep up the pressure. We'll be in touch soon to let you know how you can help with that.

For more details visit our blog.

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