European climate protests have notably heightened to activist attempted to place CEOs under citizen’s arrests
By Emma Colton Fox News
Climate protesters have grown more confrontational in recent years, experts say, including publicly cataloging energy sector leaders and conservatives as “climate criminals,” staging disruptive protests outside conservative organizations in the U.S., while climate activists in the U.K. have gone as far as attempting citizen’s arrests of water company CEOs.
“It’s been getting worse during the 21st Century, ever since Bush vs. Gore in the year 2000,” Heritage Foundation’s director of the Center for Energy, Climate and Environment, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, told Fox News Digital. “Before that, I think that the relations were better and that they’ve been gradually getting worse. It seems to be worse, worse every year. I would say, and I think partly the year 2000, it’s also where there was more access to the internet in general.”
Climate activists have increasingly become more confrontational in splashy and often costly acts of protests, including throwing soup at glass protecting the “Mona Lisa” at the Louvre in Paris while protesting food insecurity in 2024, vandalizing Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate in 2023 with orange paint while calling on the German government to stop using all fossil fuels by 2030, and a yearslong international campaign that has vandalized and deflated thousands of tires on SUVs since 2021.
Fox News Digital took a look back at how climate protests have intensified in recent years, most notably in Europe, and how the activism is also playing out on U.S. soil and in the court system.
In the U.K. earlier in October, a group of female climate activists were seen surrounding water company CEO Mark Thurston near a train station in London while trying to place him under a citizen’s arrest for “charges” of public nuisance related to environmental damage and sewage spills. The women surrounded the CEO of Anglian Water and linked their arms together before he was seen jumping into a cab.
The attempted citizen’s arrest followed another similar incident in the U.K. in March, when climate protesters attempted to place Thames Water’s CEO and chief financial officer under citizen’s arrest on suspicion of causing a public nuisance over illegal discharge of sewage and other alleged issues, The Guardian reported at the time.
Confrontational and destructive protests have not played out at the same pace in the U.S. as Europe, but stateside protests also have swelled in recent years.
“For the past few months, we’ve had protesters in front of Heritage,” Furchtgott-Roth told Fox News Digital about the conservative think tank’s office in Washington, D.C.
“We had to hire extra security, and it’s not just the front entrance, but it’s also the back entrance,” she added. “They know all the entrances to our building.”
The climate expert and economist explained that the proliferation of internet accessibility since 2000 has sparked climate protesters to become more confrontational, as activists push the limits of what they say online and are better able to coordinate with like-minded individuals.
The Heritage Foundation’s president is also among a lengthy list of individuals identified as “climate criminals” in a public directory of dozens of individuals stretching from Trump administration officials to oil company CEOs. The directory claims those listed “have played historical and present roles in perpetuating climate destruction.”
“Certain criminals have been awarded specific titles based on the nature of their crimes. Climate criminals designated as ‘Oilgarchs’ are members of Trump’s Cabinet or Mega-donors with explicit ties to the fossil fuel industry. Climate criminals designated with a ‘Lifetime Achievement’ award are actors who have earned a spot in our ‘Hall of Shame’ for their role in driving climate destruction over the last couple decades,” the climate directory states.
The website states it does not call for violence against those identified, instead championing “nonviolent witness and protest with the goal of promoting legal and voluntary changes in behavior.” Fox News Digital reached out to the group for additional comment but did not immediately receive a reply.
SUPREME COURT MUST FREEZE THE CLIMATE EXTORTION OF OUR ENERGY INDUSTRY
Furchtgott-Roth said Europe’s heightened climate protests are more severe than in the U.S., pointing to European censorship overall as an issue.
“Look at what’s happened in Birmingham in the UK, where they’re telling supporters of the Israeli football team that they cannot attend the game because they cannot protect. That’s a lot worse than what we have here,” she said, referring to a ban on Israeli soccer club fans from attending a Europa League game in Birmingham, England, in November over security concerns.
