Environmental campaign group Extinction Rebellion has carried out a fifth day of protests across London, calling for urgent action to tackle climate change and wildlife losses.
More than 1,000 people have been arrested since the protests began on Monday, according to the Metropolitan Police, which has urged activists to “protest peacefully or go home”.
Metropolitan Police commissioner Cressida Dick yesterday said the protesters were “utterly irresponsible and completely unreasonable” for their determination to occupy central London.
But in a statement, Extinction Rebellion raised concerns that extreme weather caused by climate change would lead to crop losses, food crises, social unrest and damage to infrastructure, and said people were risking arrest to show “how vulnerable we are”.
XR activists have blockaded New Broadcasting House, the BBC’s headquarters in London, as the protests enter their fifth day.
Protesters are holding banners bearing slogans such as “Planet Before Profit”, waving flags, singing and chanting “BBC, can’t you see, this is an emergency”.
A spokesperson for XR called “on the BBC to meet its crucial moral duty to tell the full truth on the climate and ecological emergency”.
British billionaire Sir Christopher Hohn was yesterday revealed as a major financial backer of Extinction Rebellion.
Sir Christopher, who is worth £1.2 billion, made a personal donation of £50,000 to the environmental group. He told the Daily Telegraph:
I recently gave them £50,000 because humanity is aggressively destroying the world with climate change and there is an urgent need for us all to wake up to this fact.
The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, a charity co-founded by the billionaire, has also donated more than £150,000.
These are the latest scenes outside New Broadcasting House, with dozens of police officers guarding the entrance to the building.
No word yet from the Metropolitan Police on any possible arrests.
Officers have made more than 1,000 arrests in total since the XR protests began on Monday.
XR launched a “Hong Kong-style” occupation of London City Airport yesterday.
One man, identified by Extinction Rebellion as former Paralympic cyclist James Brown, who is visually impaired, managed to get on top of a British Airways plane at the airport.
His actions were branded “reckless, stupid and dangerous” by Dame Cressida Dick, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police.
She said:
My early understanding is somebody has been arrested after they… presumably bought a ticket, went through security perfectly normally, went up the steps of a plane and hurled themselves on top of a plane.
Actually, that was a reckless, stupid and dangerous thing to do for all concerned. But I think you can see that is quite a hard thing to predict or stop from happening.
Today could prove to be a momentous day for the climate movement, as teenage activist Greta Thunberg is being widely tipped to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Greta, who launched the “school strike for climate” protest movement, faces competition from Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed and New Zealand leader Jacinda Ardern.
Native Brazilian environmental leader Raoni Metuktire is also among the names being tipped by bookmakers.
The prize, worth nine million Swedish crowns, or around £720,000, will be presented in Oslo on December 10.
Speaking to Reuters, XR spokesperson Donnachadh McCarthy reveals why the group is targeting the BBC:
We’re here today to demand that the BBC respond to the emergency in the way they responded to World War Two i.e. devoting the entire professional management structure to getting the message out to the British public.
We’re here because the BBC has refused to declare a climate emergency. We’re also here today because the BBC continues to normalise high-carbon lifestyles with programmes like Top Gear promoting flying and driving.
A BBC spokesperson said she could not comment on security matters. She refused to comment on the criticism of the corporation’s coverage.
Dozens of mayors from every continent have pledged to fight air pollution in a bid to improve urban health and tackle climate change.
London mayor Sadiq Khan was among those attending the C40 summit of world mayors in Copenhagen.
UN general secretary Antonio Guterres told the conference:
This dirty air kills seven million people a year, largely in cities, and contributes to the global climate emergency.
Mr Khan added:
Toxic air pollution is a global crisis, and as mayors, it is our fundamental responsibility to protect the public from this invisible killer.
The mayors met in the Danish capital days after climate protesters took to the streets pledging two weeks of peaceful civil disobedience.
Delegates at the summit opening were met by demonstrators from local group Klima Aktion DK, armed with fake binoculars made from toilet rolls.
“Our message to the C40 Mayors is: The people are watching you! We want to see action!” the group wrote on Facebook.
In an article for the Evening Standard, the Metropolitan Police commissioner added:
Londoners want us out on the streets focusing on what matters most to them, bearing down on violent criminals and reducing knife crime.
Two-thirds of bird species in North America face extinction unless immediate action is taken to slow the rate of climate change, experts have warned.
David Yarnold, chief executive of the National Audubon Society, said:
We are in the midst of a bird emergency. This is as much about the future that we face and our children face as the birds face.
Too much of the world is still addicted to coal power even as climate change “threatens the viability of human societies”, the head of the UN has said.
Speaking at a summit in Copenhagen, Antonio Guterres said:
Let us make no mistake, we are facing an urgent crisis.
Climate change is moving faster than we are, exceeding worst-case projections.
Current national climate action plans get us nowhere close to these goals. We are on pace for a catastrophic 3-degree or more rise.
This would be devastating for humanity.
Tim Crosland, director of the charity, said in a press release:
Extinction Rebellion activists are being treated as criminals.
Their “crime”, let’s remember, is to demand the action required (according to science) to prevent the ultimate humanitarian catastrophe.
Metropolitan Police chief Cressida Dick says the force has been “stretched” by the protests, impeding its ability to respond to other crimes.
She told the PA news agency she hoped the activists would choose to either “protest lawfully” or “go home”.
She said:
If they do that then of course I can deploy many of my officers back to the streets, back to the neighbourhoods, back to the schools, back to the wards of the people of London.
We are responding to all serious matters and urgent matters of course, carrying on with our crime investigations in homicide or armed robbery.
But we’re having to move work from one unit to another and the less urgent, less critical, less important work of course gets delayed.
Irish activists have ‘wallpapered’ the front of a government department with pages of science detailing the climate impact of fracked gas.
A group of protesters pasted printouts of a study by climate scientist Professor Robert Howarth, showing the effects of fracked gas on fossil fuels.
The move is the flagship action of Extinction Rebellion week in the city.
Campaigners are calling for the government to reverse its decision to back proposals for the Shannon-based liquefied nitrogen gas (LNG) terminal in Co Kerry.
Some protesters have headed to Liverpool Street, in central London, for a demonstration outside the Government Oil & Gas Fiscal Summit.
Other activists remain at Trafalgar Square despite being asked by police to move their tents from nearby roads, according to Extinction Rebellion:
The theme for today seems to be ‘like water’. We’re constantly moving, flowing, regrouping. The situation changes by the minute and new structures go up as fast as they get dismantled.
