Climate change campaigners shut down four major bridges in London over the Easter weekend as part of a wave of actions across the United Kingdom demanding an end to fossil fuels. Protesters across London played bongos and waved banners that demanded an end to fossil fuels as they blocked roads that caused queues of traffic in the centre of the capital.
Extinction Rebellion (XR) campaigners blocked the Blackfriars, Lambeth, Waterloo, and Westminster bridges. "Rebels are swarming across London, part of a global wave of civil disobedience as people wake up to the fact that our leaders are failing to tackle the climate crisis," the group tweeted. "They promise BuildBackBetter -- but all they do is pour oil on the [fire]."
The climate change activist group vowed to keep demonstrating until the British government aligns its policy with climate science. They highlighted that globally "we're on track for a catastrophic 3°C warming!" That is a full degree higher than the less ambitious target of the 2015 Paris climate agreement for limiting global temperature rise by 2100, relative to pre-industrial levels.
"As long as our government fails to act now on the climate crisis, disregarding expert advice, licensing more drilling for oil and gas, locking up scientists, we have no choice but to disrupt," XR added.
Blackfriars Bridge was held up by a single 76-year-old woman who lay in the road and refused to budge. Lucy Harding said she had first learned about climate change from her stepson in 1976. "That's a long time to know that we are in danger and it has been really frightening to see it coming closer and closer, seeing tipping point after tipping point pass," she said. "It's awful to be 76, to actually see the end of my life coming, and knowing what has been left behind."
About two dozen officers from the City of London police surrounded Ms Harding, who said she was determined to be arrested. However, she voluntarily ended her blockade after officers refused to pick her up and threatened to call an ambulance to take her away.
On Good Friday the city's Metropolitan Police tweeted that "we are seeing pockets of protest which are causing delays and disruption across central London" and "officers are on scene and working to manage the impact."
On Saturday veteran environmental activist Daniel Mark Hooper, known as ‘Swampy’ , scaled Marble Arch along with a fellow climber to hang a giant banner across the monumental gate by Hyde Park in London’s West End to the cheers of hundreds of supporters who blocked the junction at Marble Arch. Seventy were later arrested.
The banner drop marked the close of a week of Extinction Rebellion actions in central London which have seen the convergence of environmental groups around a demand for an immediate end to all new fossil fuel projects. The Just Stop Oil Coalition, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are among those who have been calling for an end to fossil fuels, as well as intergovernmental organisations such as the United Nations and the International Energy Agency
Extinction Rebellion believes it is a citizen’s duty to rebel, using peaceful civil disobedience, when faced with criminal inactivity by their Government. XR’s key demands are:
- Government must tell the truth by declaring a climate and ecological emergency, working with other institutions to communicate the urgency for change.
- Government must act now to halt biodiversity loss and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2025.
- Government must create and be led by the decisions of a Citizens’ Assembly on climate and ecological justice.
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