Thursday, 21st November 2024

Climate change protestors block London stock exchange

Thursday, 25th April 2019

Environmental activists glued themselves to the London Stock Exchange and climbed onto the roof of a train at Canary Wharf on the final day of protests aimed at forcing Britain to take action to avert what they cast as a global climate cataclysm.

The Extinction Rebellion group has caused mass disruption in recent weeks across London, blocking Marble Arch, Oxford Circus and Waterloo Bridge, smashing a door at the Shell building and shocking lawmakers with a semi-nude protest in parliament.

Police warned of disruption throughout the day, as the protests come to an end.

At the London Stock Exchange’s headquarters, six protesters dressed in black suits and red ties were blocking the revolving doors of the building.

Extinction Rebellion is urging the government to "tell the truth" about the scale of the climate crisis, it wants the UK to reduce carbon emissions to net zero by 2025 and it wants a Citizens' Assembly to oversee the changes needed to achieve that goal.

More than 1,000 people have been arrested since the protests began on 15 April.

At the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) station in Canary Wharf, five protesters from the group climbed aboard a train and unfurled a banner which read: “Business as usual = Death”. One glued herself to a train.

In the past 11 days, the group has brought iconic parts of central London to a standstill in what activists have described as the biggest act of civil disobedience in modern British history.

In 2017, total United Kingdom greenhouse gas emissions were 43 percent lower than in 1990 and 2.6 percent lower than 2016, according to government statistics.

The group said they will end their protests in London on Thursday and will end their blockades at Parliament Square and Marble Arch.

However, they promised more protests in the future, saying direct action was the only way to bring the issue to public attention.