Mothers Rise Up – a group of concerned mums who campaign for action on climate change – are organising a colourful classical music-led performance to call on Lloyd’s of London to protect children and their futures, not fossil fuels.
The striking, family-friendly street performance will consist of over 30 dancers grouped into mothers and corporates, creating a show, where a new world is imagined – performed to Dvořák’s New World Symphony. Towering stilt walkers dressed as oil derricks will depict the fossil fuel industry, and a young child in a huge planet Earth will show what is at stake.
The street theatre - which kicks off Insure Our Future’s Global Week of Action - juxtaposes the fragility of a child’s innocent world, against a corporate and oily money-driven agenda. It will end with the insurance industry siding with the mothers and choosing to protect the future of children and the planet by ceasing the insurance of fossil fuel projects. As the performance closes, the classical track will fade to birdsong.
The performance has been crafted by Mothers Rise Up together with Denni Sayers, a mother, choreographer and director working in opera and theatre. She has previously choreographed performances at leading opera houses around the world, as well as Mothers Rise Up’s previous Mary Poppins flash mob.
Lloyd's of London members insure some of the most damaging fossil fuel projects in the world, such as oil and gas expansion in the North Sea and the Adani Coal Mine in Australia. It has also refused to rule out insuring the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP), which if built would be the world's largest crude oil pipeline, destroying communities, livelihoods and endangered wildlife in Uganda and Tanzania. Without insurance, these dangerous projects could not go ahead.
The mother-led action outside Lloyd’s is one of scores of events happening from 26 February to 3 March from New York to Tokyo and Zurich spotlighting the often-overlooked role of the insurance industry in fuelling the climate crisis.
Insure Our Future’s Global Week of Action aims to highlight the insurance industry’s complicity in helping fossil fuel projects to expand, whilst climate breakdown is happening on a global scale and parts of the world are becoming uninsurable or people can no longer afford insurance premiums. For example, in the UK home insurance premiums are expected to rise by more than a third in the next two years. At a time when many families are struggling to afford the basics, they will be hit by costly insurance premiums from an industry that is enabling climate-wrecking fossil fuel projects that threaten their children’s futures. In today’s world, our best insurance is to keep fossil fuels in the ground and rapidly scale up safe, clean renewable energy.
The Mothers Rise Up action is due to take place at 11.00am Monday 26 February 2024 and is preceded by a peaceful interfaith vigil between 9.30am -10.30am, organised by Quakers in Britain in support of the Global Week of Action.