Eco-activists throw black confetti in Science Museum protest
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Eco-activists scattered black confetti at London’s Science Museum in protest at a new exhibition sponsored by an Indian energy company.
The South Kensington-based museum is currently holding an exhibition titled “Energy Revolution: The Adani Green Energy Gallery”.
Protesters from Fossil Free Now gathered in one of the museum’s stairwells to scatter black confetti and sing in protest at the exhibition’s sponsors.
“A chorus of protest at the Science Museum to protest their dirty, oily sponsors,” read a post by the group on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“We’re standing together as a coalition to say our museum is NOT for sale to fossil fuel companies or weapons producers like Adani.”
Footage posted to X by Fossil Free Now shows protesters singing on a staircase in the museum, throwing what appears to be black confetti as they descend.
The words “environment justice now” can be made out from the 15-second clip’s soundtrack.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said no arrests had been made.
Sir Ian Blatchford, the chief executive of the Science Museum, said: “Engaging our audiences with the science of climate change – the defining challenge of our time – is a key priority for the Science Museum Group.
“Our innovative new gallery will explore how we might achieve the urgent energy transition the world needs to see, a project made possible by generous sponsorship from Adani Green Energy, a major renewable energy business based in India whose huge population is expected to drive the biggest energy demand growth of any country in the world in the coming decades.”
Sir Ian continued: “We recognise that some campaigners have strong views about sponsorship and wish to see wholesale disengagement from entire sectors.
“Our trustees disagree with that view and have clearly articulated our approach, both in terms of robust governance and in urging companies, governments and individuals to do more to make the global economy less carbon intensive – something Adani Green Energy is making a big contribution to.”
Adani Group is an Indian multinational conglomerate with substantial interests in energy. Known for coal mining and importing the carbon-based fuel into its home country of India, it recorded sales worth $17 billion in the year to March 2023, according to Bloomberg.
Adani’s founder, Gautam Adani, personally hailed the Science Museum exhibition in a post on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.
“This landmark gallery will showcase the scientific vision of a sustainable future, powered by renewables and low carbon technologies,” said the businessman, who is worth a reported $100 billion (£79.3 billion).
A post on Fossil Free Now’s Instagram account advertising the protest ahead of Saturday described Adani as “a coal producer, human rights abuser, weapons manufacturer” and claims the company “sponsors” ethnic repression in Gaza, Myanmar and India, without providing evidence.
Adani signed an industrial partnership deal with Israeli defence contractor Elbit Systems in 2018 to manufacture the Hermes 900 surveillance drone, an aeroplane whose origins lie in the same design as the British Army’s Watchkeeper uncrewed aircraft.
Fossil Free Now has previously been linked to Greta Thunberg, who was arrested and charged with a public order offence after attending one of its protests outside an oil and gas conference.
She was later cleared after a judge threw the case out, saying a police-imposed condition on the protest that she was accused of breaking was “so unclear that it is unlawful”.
