‘Sorry, this is an emergency’: Climate protesters block streets around the world
LONDON (Reuters) – Thousands of climate-change protesters took to the streets in cities around the world on Monday, launching two weeks of peaceful civil disobedience to demand immediate action to cut carbon emissions and avert an ecological disaster.
In London, police arrested 276 activists from the Extinction Rebellion group as they blocked bridges and roads in the city center, and glued themselves to cars, while protesters in Berlin halted traffic at the Victory Column roundabout.
Dutch police stepped in to arrest more than 100 climate activists blocking a street in front of the country’s national museum and there were similar protests in Austria, Australia, France, Spain and New Zealand.
“SORRY that we blocked the road, but this is an emergency,” declared placards held by activists in Amsterdam.
In New York’s financial district, protesters spattered the Wall Street Bull and themselves with fake blood and lay prone around the sculpture to evoke their fears of a deadly environmental catastrophe.
The protests are the latest stage in an global campaign for tougher and swifter steps against climate change coordinated by Extinction Rebellion, which rose to prominence in April when it snarled traffic in central London for 11 days.
Last month, millions of young people flooded onto the streets of cities around the world, inspired to take action by 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta Thunberg.
Extinction Rebellion says it expects peaceful protests over the next two weeks in more than 60 cities from New Delhi to New York calling on governments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025 and halt a loss of biodiversity.
Banging drums and chanting, protesters in London took over Trafalgar Square and marched down the Mall, the avenue that leads to Buckingham Palace. They carried banners with slogans including “Climate change denies our children a future unless we act now”.
“We’re here because the government is not doing enough on the climate emergency,” protester Lizzy Mansfield said. “We only get one planet and so we’re here to try and defend it.”
Police chiefs said last week they would mobilize thousands of officers to handle the protests in London and that anyone who broke the law, even as part of non-violent civil disobedience, would be arrested.
