Houston Newsroom

Protesters holding a banner reading “Give Billionaires the Boot” chant as they march through downtown Houston on Monday, March 23rd. Around 300 protesters marched from City Hall to the George R. Brown Convention Center to oppose the CERAWeek energy conference on its first day of programming. Photo by Paola Hoffman, Houston Newsroom.

Around 300 protesters marched through downtown Houston Monday to demonstrate against CERAWeek, an annual global energy conference by S&P Global. 

As oil and gas executives, lawmakers, and tech industry leaders gathered for meetings inside the George R. Brown Convention Center, the crowd arrived outside with banners, posters, a piñata, and live jazz.

Some protesters held screen printed signs reading “we will not let you poison us” and “defend the soil, defund big oil.”

Others raised posters that identified oil and gas executives by their names and net worths, followed by the words “make them pay” in block text.

The march and rally were the final events of Confronting CERAWeek, a four-day series of workshops, fundraisers and making art. The events were planned by a coalition of 45 organizations from across the Gulf South. 

CERAWeek hosts 10,000 participants and 2,350 companies for a “dialogue on the agenda ahead as the world enters a new era of energy transition,” according to its website.

Organizer Shiv Srivastava said the conference represents something different.

Srivastava is the policy director at Fenceline Watch, an environmental justice organization based in Houston’s historic East End. He said communities like his are being discussed behind the meeting room doors.

“You have delegations from all over the globe that come here to Houston to discuss plans and projects for expansions of facilities and pipelines and refineries in our backyards,” Srivastava said.

“We are here to show that our communities in the Gulf Coast, in Texas, around the country and all the way to the global South will not be used as sacrifice zones for more exploitation, for oil, gas or petrochemical production.”

Fenceline Watch was one of the organizations offering workshops over the weekend. 

Srivastava said the organization was able to take a group of advocates from out of state to visit the Houston Ship Channel and learn about the developments there.

He said they also led a workshop on chemical disaster preparedness along the Gulf Coast, training participants on what to do in the event of a chemical facility explosion or refinery fire.

James Hiatt, the director of For A Better Bayou, came to Houston from Southwest Louisiana to join the demonstration. He was one of many participants who crossed state lines to attend.

Hiatt said that the costs of natural gas operations go beyond money, and expressed concern for the health risks of natural gas extraction.

“Kids who grow up near frack sites are two to three times more likely to have leukemia,” Hiatt said.

“All along the entire supply chain is suffering and premature death, and all they can say is jobs. There’s not enough jobs that can make up for the suffering that they’ve caused, and they don’t pay for it, the people always have to pay.” 

But Hiatt said he didn’t feel hopeless. 

“There’s better ways to be, and they’re all around us,” he said. “Just got to give billionaires the boot.”