Shut Down Glencore’s Genocide Economy: Actions Planned Ahead of Glencore’s AGM
On May 28, 2025, Glencore, the world’s largest mining conglomerate, will host its Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Switzerland. On that day, coordinated actions will erupt around the world in South Africa, Colombia, Peru, Germany, and Switzerland, organised by the global Resist Glencore Network and the Global Energy Embargo Campaign. In South Africa, the South African BDS Coalition Energy Embargo Campaign, made up of Palestine solidarity groups, environmental justice organisations, trade unions, mining affected communities and many other activists will protest at the Glencore headquarters in Johannesburg and other areas across the country.
Glencore is at the heart of a deadly global network: extracting and exporting coal, cobalt, crude oil, copper, and other minerals from over 35 countries while enabling ecological destruction, and repression. From South Africa to Colombia, its operations leave trails of poisoned water, devastated communities and blood-soaked profits. Worse still, Glencore is exporting South African coal to Israel to fuel the genocide, the military complex and illegal settlements.
Right now, coal from South Africa is on its way to Apartheid Israel, one of its top three suppliers alongside Colombia and Russia. In January 2025 alone, South Africa shipped 150,000 tonnes of coal to Israel, directly fueling genocide and making a total of R343 million in profit. Since January 2024, South Africa’s exports to Israel have surged by 22.9%. This, as the Palestinian people in Gaza are on the verge of being wiped out.
Coal powers 17.5% of Israel’s electricity grid, powering illegal settlements and military infrastructure. This energy underpins Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, where the power supply is simultaneously being cut off. This is an internationally recognised war crime.
According to the UN General Assembly, all states are legally obligated to end their complicity in Israel’s occupation and apartheid regime. Glencore and South Africa’s coal sales to Israel are in blatant and shameful violation of this obligation.
We are calling for an energy embargo on the genocidal state of Israel. We are calling for an end to Glencore’s death economy.
Glencore’s complicity doesn’t stop at coal. From violent union-busting and bribery, to selling cobalt mined by children in the DRC, to causing irreversible lung diseases in South African miners and environmental devastation in Bolivia, Australia, and Peru: Glencore operates with impunity. It partners locally with Patrice Motsepe’s African Rainbow Minerals and operates in South Africa under the Astron Energy brand (the orange and purple petrol stations) which both profit from destructive extraction.
Every tonne of coal burned releases 2.6 tonnes of CO2. One cargo ship of coal (170,000 tonnes) causes $466 million in climate damage. One report finds that the emissions from the first 60 days of Israel’s war on Gaza alone are greater than the annual emissions of over 30 countries, equivalent to running 75 coal-fired power stations for a year. War, like extractivism, is a climate catastrophe. Research shows that the carbon emissions during the first two months of Israel’s assault in Gaza in 2023 were larger than the annual carbon footprint of over 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations. One study estimates that each tonne of CO2 emitted will cause approximately 0.000226 premature deaths by 2100. This means that a single coal shipment to Israel could be linked to nearly 100 premature deaths from climate-related impacts.
The climate crisis is also a refugee crisis. In Gaza, over 1.4 million Palestinians have been displaced by Israeli bombardments, with many left exposed to the elements without adequate shelter, food, or fuel. The mass destruction of infrastructure has led to the collapse of sewage treatment and water management systems, further exacerbating health risks.
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, over 6.2 million people are internally displaced due to ongoing conflict, with climate change exacerbating food insecurity and resource scarcity. Floods and extreme weather events have further displaced thousands, highlighting the intersection of environmental degradation and human displacement.
Climate justice is impossible without confronting colonialism, imperialism, and genocide. From Palestine to West Papua, from Congo to Sudan we stand in solidarity with all struggles for land, justice, and liberation.
As long as Glencore continues to profit from blood coal and imperial plunder, we will resist.
Join us on May 28.
Disrupt Glencore. Embargo Israel. End the extraction economy.
