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Dozens of climate protesters with Sunrise Movement LA rallied outside Phillips 66’s Los Angeles Lubricant Terminal on Thursday morning, with 16 demonstrators storming the facility’s office building.
As Los Angeles reels from what is projected to be one of the most costly natural disasters in U.S. history, the youth climate activist group says big oil companies are culpable, by emitting greenhouse gases while internally acknowledging the practice’s link to climate change, which, in turn, has worsened wildfires in California.
Sunrise Movement LA is demanding big oil companies, including Phillips 66, “pay up” to support wildfire relief and aid the state’s transition to clean energy.
“Fossil fuel CEOs are responsible for the destruction that is happening right now in Los Angeles,” said Simon Aron, 18, a Sunrise Movement volunteer and the action lead for Thursday’s protest. “They are responsible for the fact that me and my neighbors had to evacuate our homes, that we still can’t drink our water.”
An hour after the protest began, police escorted some demonstrators out of the office space. No arrests were made.
“The group that was inside decided to step out,” said Kidus Girma, a national organizer for Sunrise Movement, which mobilizes young people across the country into climate action. “The plan is to continue holding space and seeing if other possible occupations begin in the state.”
Sunrise Movement L.A. planned to continue protesting outside the facility throughout Thursday, until their demands are met or Phillip 66’s CEO agrees to meet with the demonstrators.
Phillips 66 did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In the days after the devastating wildfires, air monitors recorded some of the highest levels of air pollution in recent years, coinciding with a surge in hospital visits.
A 2015 Times investigation found that while Exxon publicly described the science of climate change as “unclear” in the 1990s, it was internally incorporating climate change projections into long-term planning for its Arctic operations.
In 2023, California sued five of the largest oil and gas companies in the world for a “decades-long campaign of deception” about climate change, including ConocoPhillips, which spun off Phillips 66 as an independent firm in 2012.
Wildfires in Southern California are becoming destructive for multiple reasons, fire experts say, including an increase in development in areas with high wildfire risk and a feedback loop in which native plant species don’t have enough time between constant fire ignitions from humans to regrow, opening the land for fast-growing, more flammable invasive brushes.
Scientific studies have also found that human-caused climate change is increasing the risk of rapid wildfire growth in the Golden State.
A 2023 paper from climate and fire researchers across California found that so far, climate change has increased the frequency of extreme wildfire growth by 25%. By the end of the century, California could see 59% to 172% more frequent explosive fire growth, the researchers estimated.
After the Palisades and Eaton fires, Republican and Democratic leaders have condemned city leadership for water pressure problems and a lack of preparedness, which critics say allowed the fires to become as destructive as they did.
The two fires, which have burned more than 27,000 acres and have yet to reach 100% containment as of Thursday morning, have killed at least 25 people, with 23 still missing.
Coverage of the firefighters’ battle to improve containment over the Eaton and Palisades fires, including stories about the latest death count and victim frustration.
“I’ve been running from the climate crisis for seven or eight years now,” said Naomi Hollard, 27, a protester at Thursday’s demonstration. In 2017, Hurricane Maria devastated Guadeloupe, her mother’s Caribbean island, she said, and last week, the Eaton fire threatened her neighborhood.
“It was absolutely terrifying — probably one of the worst weeks of my life,” she said. It fueled her decision to take action. “Do I want to live or do I want to die? It’s that simple.”
Aron — who has been involved with Sunrise Movement since he was 14 — said the recent wildfires have galvanized L.A.’s young climate-minded folks like nothing else.
“I have never gotten so many texts from friends asking what they can do to help with Sunrise, to help with the climate movement, to fight back,” he said. “We have an opportunity to fight back, an opportunity to change the narrative and reveal the faces behind these disasters.”
The Phillips 66 lubricant terminal processes and stores oil products and ethanol and sits seven miles north of the company’s Carson oil refinery.
Phillips 66 announced in October that it would shut down the refinery and its sister site in Wilmington by the end of 2025 amid the growing popularity of electric vehicles and community demands for cleaner air.
The two facilities produce various petroleum products and about 8% of the state’s gasoline.
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