Protesters have scaled up the side of the Home Office in the hopes of pushing world leaders into addressing the carbon emissions crisis
Animal Rebellion protesters have scaled up the side of the Home Office in the hopes of pushing world leaders into addressing the carbon emissions crisis from both farming and fishing industries at COP26.
The protesters, who are part of an offshoot group of climate activism group Extinction Rebellion, started climbing up a structure on the side of the Home Office building, on Marsham Street, Westminster, at about 6am on Tuesday.
It took them around two and a half hours to reach the top where they unfurled a large orange banner that was calling on world leaders attending the COP26 climate talks next week in order to “invest in a plant-based future”.
This comes after a total of 61 of activists were sitting on roads carrying Insulate Britain banners, and some glued themselves to the road surface. The Metropolitan Police has said that 53 people have been arrested following the Insulate Britain demonstrations occurring in three separate locations across London.
Just before 9am, a police officer had spoken to the protesters through a megaphone, telling them to come down as they were preventing workers from entering the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) building, which is housed within the Home Office building.
Inspector Richards had said that they were trespassing with the purpose of “intimidating, obstructing and disrupting” before directing them to come down and if they failed to do so, then they could face being arrested.
He added that they are banned from the land for three months.
One protester told Sky News: “Ahead of COP26, we are calling for, no, demanding, that the world wake up and switch to a fully plant-based diet.
“We don’t do this because we want to do it, we do this because we have to do it.
“If we don’t do this the government won’t address it.”
A leaflet protesters were handing out said that the UK’s meat and dairy industries are some of the nation’s leading producers of polluting greenhouse gases while the fishing industry is “destroying our ocean ecosystems, contributing to dead zones and increasing acidification”.
It said that world leaders at COP26, that are due to start on Sunday in Glasgow, “cannot talk about meeting the Paris climate targets and securing net-zero emissions without addressing that our food system is destroying the planet”.
The group is also asking the government to “defund meat, dairy and fishing” and invest in a “just plant-based food system”.
This comes after the price of unleaded has rocketed from 114.5p a year ago, adding £15 to the cost of filling up a 55-litre family car. Petrol prices within the UK have hit a record high in what the RAC has described as a “truly dark day for drivers”.
The Metropolitan Police, the London Fire Brigade and London Ambulance Service were on the scene not long after the protestors started climbing but no arrests have been made as of yet.
A Met Police spokesperson told Sky News: “Police were called at 06:09hrs on Tuesday, 26 October following reports that a number of protesters had scaled a government building in Marsham Street SW1.
“Officers are on scene with the London Fire Brigade. There have been no arrests at this time.”
