Chevron Confronted for Complicity in Gaza Genocide and Planetary Destruction
Demonstration at the El Segundo Refinery in Los Angeles
On August 11, a coalition of organizations in Los Angeles, dedicated to Palestinian human rights and addressing the global climate crisis, converged at the Chevron Refinery in El Segundo, just south of the L.A. airport.
The coalition included Black Lives Matter LA, Code Pink LA, Extinction Rebellion LA, Veterans for Peace LA, WhitePeople4BlackLives, Queers4PalestineLA, Community Solidarity Projects, Youth Climate Strike LA, SJP Santa Monica, SJP Irvine Valley College, SoCal 350 Climate Action, Unmute Humanity, and ProPalestineLA. The action was also advertised and supported by the Los Angeles DSA chapter, with DSA-LA members participating.
Chevron is complicit in crimes against humanity around the world. The company faces thirteen credible accusations of genocide and seventeen accusations of torture. The consequences of Chevron's activities in Palestine are particularly gruesome. Chevron operates the largest Israeli natural gas fields, Tamar and Leviathan, thus enabling electrical power to all branches of the Israeli government and its military. These operations also provide the government of Israel with billions of dollars in revenue, thereby contributing to apartheid, occupation and genocide in Palestine.
On a global scale, Chevron is responsible for one of the highest total carbon emissions of any private company in the world. Atmospheric greenhouse gases are now at peak concentrations, and 2024 is expected to have the highest global average temperature ever recorded. The threat to life on Earth from these emissions can hardly be overstated. A 2019 paper published in Nature warned that up to a million species of plants and animals are now facing extinction. Underscoring this assessment, the World Wildlife Fund reported that 69 percent of the world’s vertebrate population has died off since 1970. According to leading biologists, Earth is in the midst of its sixth mass extinction (the previous mass extinction, 65 million years ago, ended the dinosaurs).
Humanity is not exempt from the devastation. A 2020 study, published in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”, predicts that for every additional one degree Celsius temperature rise, a billion people will be forced to abandon their locations or endure insufferable heat. Areas home to a third of the world’s population could experience the same temperatures as the hottest parts of the Sahara within fifty years, because of high emissions. Consistent with this, the Institute for Economics and Peace reports that 1.2 billion people could become climate refugees by 2050.
The coalition made the following demands, articulated at the demonstration and mailed to the Chevron CEO and Board of Directors:
Discontinue all financial contracts and relations with the state of Israel.
Compensate Palestinians for any losses resulting from the extraction of gas reserves off the Gaza Strip.
Develop and carry out a plan to convert all Chevron operations to producing renewable energy, compensate all past victims of climate disasters, and end all fossil fuel operations worldwide.
Provide full funding for a just transition of Chevron's labor force into well-paid, unionized jobs in renewable energy and/or jobs with sustainable outcomes.
A flyer distributed in the neighborhoods surrounding the Chevron refinery further addressed the issue of a Just Transition for Chevron workers this way:
"Without support from labor, ending fossil fuel production and creating a just transition for workers won't be possible. Trade unionists are justifiably worried over the loss of jobs. A just transition for workers requires social control of the process of decommissioning fossil fuel infrastructure and deploying green energy infrastructure in its place. Private capital has no interest in building the democratic energy commons required for humanity’s survival, or in ensuring that workers’ needs are fully protected. Public ownership of all fossil fuel and energy infrastructure is therefore a necessity. We call for nationalization of Chevron and all fossil fuel corporations." [bold in the original]
This recent action in Los Angeles is part of a growing opposition to fossil fuel industries worldwide and Chevron in particular. A similar action occurred in Richmond California in February 2024, and demonstrations are being planned in Houston, Chevron's new headquarters, and other cities in Texas, as well as many locations around the world.